


The New Normal -- a Damon and Elena post-series fic

by norahb



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Bonnie Bennett & Damon Salvatore Friendship, F/M, Female Friendship, Human Damon Salvatore, Human Elena Gilbert, Magic School, Marriage, Origin of Magic, Original Character(s), Post-Canon, Post-Series, Small Towns, Vampires, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2018-12-07 21:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11631951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norahb/pseuds/norahb
Summary: A few months after the events of the series finale, Damon and Elena are newly married and struggling to adjust to ordinary human lives. Elena is in med school. Damon owns a bar. They're finally learning to navigate the mundane when a supernatural mystery in Mystic Falls threatens to destroy their new normal.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer
> 
> Obviously, I own no part of The Vampire Diaries. If I did, there would be no Silas, no Travelers, and the whole Sirens/Cade plot would make a whole lot more sense. Regardless of any plot holes or slumps in later seasons, I thank Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson, from the bottom of my heart, for creating such a kick-ass show based (oh so loosely) on L. J. Smith's original book series. No way could I have done this story better than Julie and Kevin, and I'm loving the chance to add my own twist to their TVD universe. 
> 
> A/N
> 
> This is a post-series fic, taking place after the TVD series finale (end of season 8). Expect spoilers for seasons 1-8. If you haven't seen the series finale, which aired in March 2017, I'd suggest watching that before reading this story. All my backstory is canon, meaning that in my universe everything that happened on the show has already happened. 
> 
> Summary
> 
> A few months after the events of the series finale, Damon and Elena struggle to adjust to their new normal as human beings. Elena is in med school at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, and Damon is with her, searching for something not-horribly-boring to do with his mortal existence. Newly married, they're living in UVA's crappy married student housing. Supernatural hijinks will ensue, but for now their lives are mundane. Damon is finding that he doesn't do mundane that well, and that he's rusty at playing a human. The story focuses at first on Damon and Elena. I introduce Bonnie in chapter 2, and in later chapters Caroline, Alaric, Jeremy, and possibly other TVD characters. Once a supernatural plot starts to take over their lives, threatening this precarious new normal, the ensemble begins to play a bigger role.

CHAPTER 1

August 2017  
Charlottesville, VA

Damon was out of breath after lugging boxes and suitcases and crates of god-knows-what up three flights of steps into their new married-student-housing apartment on UVA's campus. His current load was the last. Four boxes balanced precariously on top of each other, in his arms, because goddammit Damon Salvatore was not going to make one more undignified trip up and down these goddamned stairs.

(And it was a freaking dump. He'd tried to buy them a nice, respectable house on the edge of town, but Elena was excited about being NORMAL. A nice, normal medical student with her nice normal human husband. Normal medical student's spouses, apparently, were not millionaires. Damon's insistence that he was a bona-fide millionaire fell on deaf ears. He was welcome to donate his ludicrous housing budget to feed-the-starving-children or save-the-animals, but for now they were getting by on Elena's stipend and his salary at the downtown C'ville bar she'd allowed him to buy.)

He wished he could blame Elena for all the boxes and suitcases and god-knows-what, but most of the crap he was carrying was actually his crap. Damon'd always said Stefan was the pack-rat, but Damon himself had collected a ridiculous amount of stuff over his 178 years on this crazy planet. 25 years as a human in the 1800s. 153 years as a vampire. And he'd always had his own room to return to, in the boarding house, a room that any human descendants/keepers of the family estate were too afraid to mess with. Mystic Falls had been home for the last eight years, since he'd come back to rescue Katherine from her non-imprisonment in the tomb under the old church. Since he'd met Elena, and rekindled his relationship with his brother. Since he'd become part of a community of vampires, humans, werewolves, witches, hunters, and council members. In those eight years, Mystic Falls had been home. A real home. The boarding house had been a real home. And all the people of the town -- including those he'd die to protect and those he'd tried to kill and those he actually killed (some a few times because death doesn't always stick in Mystic Falls) -- they had become a ramshackle family. The town had become one big person he would fight to protect.

But now, he'd given the boarding house to Caroline and Ric, so that they could start their "school for the young and gifted" aka baby witches. Elena said she wanted to return to Mystic Falls someday, when they were "real grownups." For the next few years, they were supposed to live in married student housing while his wife -- that sounded weird -- got her medical degree.

And anyway, this version of Damon Salvatore wasn't such a bad-ass-town-protector.

No, Damon Salvatore was a vampire no longer. His brother had ripped away Damon's superpowers when he forced the cure on him. And then Stefan -- his hero hair extra heroic that night -- had taken Damon's place in front of the hellfire. That idiot had thrown his life, literally, into hellfire, so that hell-and-Katherine-Pierce would be destroyed forever.

And Damon was stuck on Earth in his wussy human body, now lurching into his and Elena's new apartment, totally out of breath. And sweating. As a vampire, he'd barely sweated.

Right this second undignified sweat was running down Damon's forehead, and in fact all down his body. Great sheets of sticky wetness.

"Lena," he grunted as he dumped the boxes unceremoniously on the ground. "That's the last of it."

Elena sat in a sea of open boxes. She looked up from the box she was unpacking, smiling at him, gorgeous as ever in her tank top and cut-off denim shorts. Her hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail. Then she gasped and rushed over to him, her eyes all wide-open in concern.

"Oh God, Damon. Are you okay? Why didn't you ask for help? Did you carry four boxes up the stairs at one time?"

He rolled his eyes and asked for a towel.

Elena went into mother-hen-mode as she rummaged for a towel and then poured him a glass of water from the Brita pitcher in the fridge. (Apparently, he needed to add tap water to the long list of things that could kill, or at least maim, him now that he was human. Elena was very interested in safe drinking water.)

"I'm fine," Damon said as ran a towel over his sopping wet hair and face. He gulped half of the glass of water down. "Seriously, Elena. You don't need to worry about me. I didn't want to make 20 more trips so I just loaded myself down for the last few trips."

"You are not invincible," she snapped.

"So I've realized," he said. "And you mother-henning me is only going to make me feel like even more of a pathetic waste of space."

"Babe," she said with just a tinge of pity.

"Don't," he said as he pulled his black T-shirt off. He noticed that his abs were not as ripped as they used to be. He'd heard a lot of humans talk about going to the gym. Elena ran every morning. Was he really going to have to start exercising if he wanted to be able to take his shirt off in front of Elena without her having to pretend he was still sexy? Was he going to have start eating salads?

Being human sucked.

Damon sat down in the arm chair that had been in his old bedroom, and picked up a book from a crate, trying to pretend he was reading and not just desperate to sit down. In truth, he just wanted to catch his breath. Luckily for him, the book he'd randomly chosen -- a first edition of Jack London's Call of the Wild -- was one of his, and therefore it was amusing.

"Damon," Elena said, still standing over him, her expression now a mixture of pity and reproach. "You can talk to me."

"Just going to read some Jack London, babe. Did I ever tell you I partied with him?"

"You did not! I don't believe that."

"I did. He was smart."

"You're making that up," Elena said, laughing now.

Damon flipped to the front of the ancient book and held it out for her to read. "Read the dedication," he said with a slow smile, his eyes flirting with her for the first time all day.  
Elena ran her finger along the brittle paper, reverently, as she read aloud, "For Damon, who enchanted me with stories of demons and darkness and grand, never-dying love. Jack"  
Damon smiled, remembering the rugged novelist, who had ideals and more demons than he wanted. "It was the turn of the century. The last century. I met him in a saloon in Chicago. We spent a good many nights sipping bourbon and telling stories. He thought I was telling him fiction, of course."

"Of course," Elena said. Then she got a look of pure horror on her face. "You didn't eat him, did you?"

"No!" Damon said with a laugh. "Not even snatch and erase."

"And you didn't turn him?"

"No." After a pause, he waggled his eyebrows saying, "I did turn Zelda Fitzgerald."

"You did not."

"You've heard the stories. The woman was crazy. Doesn't that sound like a vampire gone wrong?"

"Seriously, Damon, did you turn Zelda Fitzgerald into a vampire?"

He broke out laughing as he shook his head violently. "No, my love. I did not turn Scott Fitzgerald's wife into a vampire. I did party with them, a lot, in the '20s. I knew Hemingway too. He was a prick. But I liked Scott."

"Really?" Elena said. "Why haven't you told me any of this?"

Damon shrugged. "We were always in the middle of a crisis, weren't we?"

She laughed as she returned the Jack London book to the crate and sat on Damon's lap.

He continued, "I mean, what with moonstones, doppelgangers, Original vampires, curses to break, blood sacrifices, werewolves, hybrids, witches up to all manner of shit, Gemini twins, ancient proto-vampires ..."

"There hasn't been time to talk about my literary heroes and whether you may have been drinking buddies with them?"

"Yep," Damon said.

"Did you sleep with any of them?"

"Probably."

Elena slapped him. "You don't know?"

Damon chortled. "Lena! I didn't sleep with Jack or Scott. Or Papa Hemingway. As far as the ladies, yeah, there's a good chance I screwed some of them."

"But you don't know?"

"Who I slept with in the '20s?" he asked, incredulous.

"Caroline always called you a man-whore," Elena said with reproach as she got up off him and returned to her unpacking ritual. "But do me a favor and no more carrying four boxes up three flights of stairs. Okay?"

"I'm fine!"

"Damon, you could have fallen backwards, and then you know what would have happened?"

"What, Elena? I could get a boo-boo?"

"You could die in a really stupid way!"

"Fuck!" he shouted. "Don't remind me!"

"Damon!"

"I was a human for 25 years and I never once died until my jack-ass of a father shot me through the chest," Damon said, getting really riled up, so riled up that he decided to bound out of the armchair, into the kitchen. Opening the fridge, he stood for a moment in front of this newfangled ice box, basking in the cold air radiating from it. Elena didn't realize how good they had it in the 21st century. "You don't need to baby me. I survived the Civil War. I think I can manage some stairs in the cheap-ass student apartment buildings."

"Again with the Civil War bragging!" she shouted from the living-dining-room.

"You want a beer, babe?"

"Are they cold yet?"

"Frosty," he said as he popped the tops off two bottles and carried them out to the living area. "Lena," he said as he handed her beer bottle to her.  
He kissed her on the cheek, then took a long drag of his drink. "Now that hits the spot." Normally he was a bourbon drinker, but it was damned hot outside, so this ice-cold beer felt damned good. Also, another annoying thing about being human is that he had about 1/20th of his normal (vampire) drinking tolerance. He could no longer drink bourbon like it was iced tea.

Elena wrapped her arm around Damon's waist and leaned into him. "I'm not trying to baby you," she murmured, "It just seems like you're not adjusting as easily as, um ..."

"As you?"

She bit her lip. "It's to be expected. I was only a vampire for a couple years. You ..."

"Haven't been human since 1864," Damon said with a smirk.

She nodded. "I just assumed that you forgot a bunch of stuff. About being human. The mundane stuff."

Damon couldn't help smiling. "That would be true. I definitely seem to have blocked out all memories of sweating like a pig. Do I smell bad?"

"A little," she admitted, knocking him playfully on the shoulder. "Me?"

"Truthfully?" Damon said, kissing her sweaty shoulder. It was so hot in here. "A little."

Elena laughed, and this time it was like music. Purely happy laughter. "I keep forgetting to wear deodorant," she admitted. "I don't think I wore it the whole time I was a vampire. I hope I didn't smell awful!"

"You smelled great. You still smell great. But anyway, vampires don't need deodorant," Damon said. "I don't actually have any. I've been stealing yours."

"What?"

"I didn't know what kind to buy. There's so many options," he sputtered. "It wasn't a thing in my day. We wore cologne, and splashed it all type of places. This roll-on crap you get at the drugstore? Not invented then. I tried the cologne thing last week but I could still smell my sweat."

Elena's laughter erupted into musical glee. "Oh my god, Damon. Have you been too embarrassed to ask for help buying toiletries?"

"I prefer to be all-knowing."

 "You're an idiot. Are you afraid of CVS?"

"I'm above CVS," Damon said, his eyes on fire looking at her, drinking her in. She was just perfect.

Elena started laughing so hard she spilled her beer all over the both of them.

Damon put his beer bottle down on the card table Elena had erected as their "dining room table," then rescued her dripping bottle from her grasp.

Damon kissed this beautiful, perfect girl, pulling her towards him. He kissed his girl like his life depended on it. He ran his hands through her messy hair. He could feel her smiling as she kissed him back. "You're beautiful," he whispered between kisses.

"You're beautiful," she breathed back.

Damon was about to pull Elena towards the bedroom. (There was no bed, but he could throw her down on the cheap carpet and make love to her. Human lovemaking was not as fast or intense as vamp-sex, but it was one thing that he liked better as a human. Somehow it felt extra real.

Something made human lovemaking, and human orgasms, so much better than anything he'd experienced as a vampire. He'd almost forgotten the intense, uniquely human, passion he'd shared with Katherine, and the two other women he'd fucked during the war?

And with Elena -- this was a hundred times better. He'd loved Katherine, he'd died for her. He'd lived again for her. But he'd never known Katherine. She was a mystery. Elena, his Elena, was real.

He was dying to throw her down on that cheap carpet and ravage her. Their sex life had been good when they were vampires, but now -- it was magical. Was it his newfound mortality, or their shared human frailty, or the terrifying idea that one day their lovemaking could produce a little Gilbert-Salvatore?

He was about to wriggle out of his jeans when someone knocked on the door. He must have left it open when he'd come in with the boxes. Dammit.

"Hey, I guess you're our new -- " a youthful, clear voice cried out from the open front doorway. "Oh, god, sorry!"

Elena pulled away from Damon, laughing in an embarrassed sort of way.

He whipped around to stare at the interloper. Who just went around walking into people's homes, unannounced? At least in the 1800s his family had slaves to answer the door. Wow, that was racist. But if he called them servants he was pretending like his father had paid them, and well, he hadn't.

At their front door stood a girl about Elena's age, wearing a set of teal scrubs. Her long blond hair hung in two braids on either side of her head. She had a nose-ring. Doctors these days were allowed to have nose rings? Damon wondered if there were any tattoos hiding under the scrubs.

"I am so sorry," she said in a rush. "I saw you guys carrying boxes up early this morning, when I was off to the hospital for my shift. And I thought I'd come introduce myself, now that I was home again. But, well, I can come back."

Damon was all for her leaving and coming back, preferably knocking on the door and offering them a bottle of wine type of coming back, rather than barging in through open doors. But Elena was rushing over to the girl and shaking her hand and smiling, trying to put her at ease. Of course, she'd not interrupted anything important.

"So sorry," Elena was saying. Why was she apologizing? "We're newly-weds. I guess we're pretty revolting."

"Oh not at all! I know how that goes. Johnny and I have been married for a few years, but yeah, there's that newlywed phase where you can't keep your paws off each other!"

"I'm Elena. Elena Gilbert. I'm starting at the med school in the fall. First year."

"Alice Salisbury. Third year in med," the girl with the nose-ring said as she shook Elena's hand. Then she looked expectantly at Damon.

"Damon," he said with a tight smile.

The girl scrunched up her eyes in thought. "Damon Gilbert? I went to middle school with a Damon Gilbert. Did you grow up in Portsmouth?"

Damon laughed, a real laugh. "It's Salvatore. Elena kept her maiden name. Very feminist this one. Of course, where I come from, women always take their husband's name, but Lena here is a modern, liberated woman. She even votes."

The girls broke out in laughter. Elena glared at Damon. He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

"And where are you from?"

"All over. Military brat," he said, so used to lying about his background that it was second nature. "But I never went to middle school in Portsmouth. Or anyplace called a middle school. And of course, I'm not a Gilbert."

Alice smiled. "Well, now that we've got that sorted. . . Johnny sent me up to find out if you guys want to come down to our place and order a pizza. Maybe get some beer, play some cards? It's been a while since we had fun neighbors and, I don't know, we saw you pull up and you looked fun."

Elena and Damon exchanged a look. She wanted to go. He could almost hear her pleading with him -- this was exactly what she'd been hoping for. Normal human neighbors. Pizza and beer and no supernatural nonsense. It had been months since Stefan died and Hell was extinguished. They'd all been picking up the pieces. Elena had been holding her breath, as if she expected that any morning she'd wake up to a new disaster, a new doppelganger plot or evil witch come to doom them to gloom. But each morning the sun had come up, and there had been no supernatural nonsense.

Damon felt like he was a soldier who'd come back from the war and was having trouble adjusting to normal life. Elena must feel the same way -- especially because the last time she'd had a chance at a normal life with him that life had been ripped away from her. She'd spent several years in a sleeping-beauty-like-coma. Damon knew it was difficult for her to trust in tomorrow when experiences like sleeping-beauty-comas had been her normal.

But for months the sun had kept rising and setting. For months, they'd quietly prepared to leave Mystic Falls, so that Elena could start medical school and the highly esteemed, but not too distant from home, University of Virginia. (Caroline had compelled the Dean of Students to believe that Elena had finished her undergraduate work, which she would have if that asshole Kai hadn't put her to sleep for four years. It killed Damon that he couldn't do the compelling.)

They'd gotten married in a small ceremony right before they'd left home. Caroline had officiated.

And now, here they were in this crappy married student housing complex. Being invited for pizza and beer by a seemingly nice and non-dangerous neighbor. As much as Damon wanted to fuck Elena on every surface of their apartment (right now, seriously, her cut-offs hugged her ass just right) -- he grinned at Alice.

"How about I kick it up a notch? I've just some good bourbon in the bedroom," he said.

"That sounds great!" Alice said. She was a bubbly one. Damon had to remind himself that it was no longer okay to snap her neck if she got too annoying, or possible to compel her into talking less. "How fancy."

Damon nodded. The bourbon would save him from drinking any more foul-tasting beer. And it was spiked with vervain.

You could never be too careful, and if Alice and Johnny were vampires, it was best to find out now. On second thought, he should probably wear a button-down shirt so that he could hide one of Ric's retractable stakes under his sleeve. Staking a vampire pretending to be a med student sounded like fun, but Damon hadn't killed a vampire since he'd become a newly minted human and he honestly didn't know how it would go down. Maybe he should bring along a few syringes of vervain. Weaken the hypothetical vampire before the staking.

But that sounded like less fun.

(Of course, there was no way in hell this girl was a vampire. She was far too perky. But you could never be too careful. And 153 years as the walking undead had taught Damon Salvatore to never assume that anyone -- human, witch, vampire, werewolf, fill-in-the-blank monster -- was what he/she/it seemed. Sure Katherine had fooled him once or twice, but even that manipulative bitch eventually showed her stripes. Damon Salvatore was no fool, so he would bring along his family's vervain and his best friend's Indiana Jones weapons. And if there was no threat, at least he'd avoid dying stupidly.)

But ... fuck. Being human was downright pitiful. So fucking vulnerable. Damon hated being the prey instead of the predator.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler alert: while it's not necessary to have seen the entire eight seasons of TVD to read this fic, this is a post-series fic, taking place a few months after the series finale. Therefore, there are spoilers galore for seasons 1-8. All my backstory is canon: everything that happened on the show has already happened before my story begins.
> 
> This story is also posted on fanfiction.net, under the same pen name. I originally posted the first chapter on FFN in March of 2017 (about nine months ago as of me writing this A/N), and I've been consistently posting on FFN ever since. The story is now 80,000+ words. It's still a work in progress, but I've got an ending mapped out and hope to finish the fic in the next few months.
> 
> A few months ago, I had this really interesting conversation with one of my best friends and fellow fanfic writer. After hearing her rave about AO3, I got an A03 account and posted the first chapter here. But then I wasn't sure if it made sense to post on both sites, which is why I haven't kept up posting here. Also, general laziness. But then I realized that a lot of people read fics primarily on FFN or AO3, and there seemed to be enough interest here in the first chapter to warrant me cross-posting on both sites. 
> 
> Currently, there are 18 chapters of The New Normal available on FFN. Since it doesn't make sense to have some arbitrary schedule where I post a chapter a week on AO3, when if you wanted to you could just could just find all 18 chapters on FFN if you wanted to. So, I'm just going ahead and posting all 18 chapters over the next couple days. I'd post all today, but it's a time-consuming and tedious process, and I should probably go to bed. So as of today, you should be able to read 8 chapters, and there's 10 more on their way in the next couple days.
> 
> Cheers and Happy New Year!  
> -Norah

**_ CHAPTER 2 _ **

_Charlottesville, VA_

_November 2017_

 

            When Damon had agreed to be the local bar owner/normal human husband of Elena's normal-human-life fantasy, he hadn't anticipated how boring running a bar would be.

Sure, over the last eight years, he'd spent half his time at the Mystic Falls Grill, but he never had to do any work. Damon hadn't held down a job since his time as a soldier in the Civil War. (If he didn't own his own business, he wasn't sure how to even fake a 21st century resume. So at least Elena's human fantasy husband didn't need to be a lawyer or architect or whatever other bullshit she might dream up.)

            When on a bar stool, he was usually recuperating from supernatural battle, goofing off with Ric or Stefan or Elena or, back in the day, Liz. Or hatching the latest iteration of his new and improved, evil master plan. There was always something to think about, or at least drink about.

            Now, Damon Salvatore's days and nights blended together, one into the next. One long, never-ending hour of mundane.

            Until he'd lost track of the time of day, or what day it was, or even what month it was. Two months in, and it seemed like a lifetime of boredom. Always the most tedious work to complete. Liquor to order. Food to stock. Food to cook. Paperwork to read about bullshit food preparation regulations. Cooks to fire. Bartenders to fire. Drunken college students to throw out on the curb.

            Everyone who worked for him was a _fricking idiot_ , and he couldn't even compel them into being competent or, at the very least, not 100% stupid.

            Damon wasn't sure what he missed more - compulsion or biting people.

            Probably a tie between compulsion and biting women's necks.

            This damned bar would be as bad as a Gemini prison world if not for the fact that he could walk out the door.

            In any event, today was a Thursday afternoon in November, three months into his term of normal-human imprisonment. And Damon was bored. No Liz Forbes to pretend to be outraged at his behavior. No Stefan to brood at him with his hero hair. No Ric to commiserate on the next barstool. Not even the ever judgey Matt Donovan.

            And no Elena until 8 pm.

            Like almost every weekday, Elena was stuck in class all day and study groups all evening. She'd show up around 8, at which point he'd try to get her to go out for a steak dinner or a greasy burger at the place down the street that made burgers much better than his line cook did. But lately Elena kept insisting that they go out for salads. Salads! Or sushi. Sushi! Damon tried to be as worldly as the average 25-year-old man he was impersonating. And it's not like he'd never eaten sushi before. When it was first hip in the 1980s (outside of Japan for the first real time in the life of sushi), Damon had enjoyed grossing out women by popping raw fish into the mouths and claiming it would make them sophisticated. He'd even compelled some to believe that the fish was alive and squirming in their pretty, lipsticked mouths. That was hilarious. The best thing about compelled girlfriends is that even if you forced them to eat live squirming fish, they couldn't dump you.

            But Damon had never actually enjoyed eating the raw, non-squirming fish. He couldn't fathom how anyone, alive or undead, got any pleasure from this strange food. If someone had offered it to him as a boy in the 1840s, he would have laughed in their face.

            On these human dates with Elena, he found salad and sushi equally annoying. Because now that he was human, he was hungry for non-human-blood-food. He'd forgotten what human hunger felt like. And eating sushi or salad for a goddamned dinner, especially when said dinner was at 8:30 after he'd been on his feet all day, sucked balls. Because Damon was always starving by 8:30 pm. And he was tired, tired like he hadn't been since 1864. And cranky. And lonely. And instead of getting to eat a half pound of burger, piled high with lettuce, tomato, mushrooms, onions, and mayo - Elena kept forcing him to eat this stupid chick food. And he believed it was impossible, even for a tiny girl like her, to get filled up with a salad or a few measly rolls of rice wrapped around raw, spicy tuna. Wasn't she hungry? Seriously, Elena's idea of a proper human diet was almost as bad as Stefan's animal blood vampire diet.

            Damon had begun hiding Twinkies and cookies and beef jerky in the far reaches or the cabinets, so that when she fell asleep, and he inevitably couldn't sleep 3 in the morning, he could satisfy his cravings for real food. Elena frowned on processed foods, and had a special hatred for Twinkies, which Damon maintained were one of the best things the 20th century had offered humanity. She liked to throw away his junk food, telling him that his arteries would thank her in 20 years. Medical school seemed to be making her paranoid about his health. Now that they had their fairy tale ending, she would prefer that he didn't die from heart disease. Sometimes Damon bit her just for spite, but his teeth didn't extend into fangs anymore and Elena just slapped him away and continued with the lecture.

            Damon smiled and nodded while she exorcised her paranoia, daydreaming about how sexy it would be to bite her neck and suck her blood gently, lovingly, as he shared his blood with her at the same time, moaning as she drank from his wrist.

Even if she threw away his Twinkies, Elena Gilbert was just so damned beautiful, and she'd chosen him.

            The exquisite Elena Gilbert had chosen him, out of all the men on the planet. And she could have almost anyone. Damon Salvatore, reformed serial killer that he was, to spend her human life with. Sexy or not, he knew that he was damaged goods, and he knew that now that she was human again, she wasn't obliged to spend her life with him. But she wanted him. (Stefan, admittedly was not an option anymore, but nevertheless years ago she'd chosen Damon years ago over Saint Stefan. Theoretically she could have dumped him to hook up Matt Donovan or any of the countless guys in med school who worshipped her. But instead she'd said yes to his proposal. She'd cried at their wedding. He'd tried not to cry but he'd teared up during his vows. It was a long time coming. 153 years to wait for a girl like this to fall in love with him.)

           No, Elena was _his_. For reasons he sometimes understood and sometimes was breathless at the leap of faith she'd taken in falling for _him_. She was still so young, still hanging onto so much innocence and a deep, almost psychotic belief in the goodness of people, despite losing every relative except her brother. Despite losing her brother before Bonnie brought him back from the dead. Besides dying and coming back to life more times than a twenty-five year-old girl should imagine might possibly happen. Despite being a human sacrifice for a 1000 year-old original hybrid, and then subsequently the kidnap victim and doppelganger pawn in a series of supernatural hijinks perpetrated by a series of less and less comprehensible monsters. Somehow, throughout all those bloody years, Elena had maintained her belief that almost any villain could be saved if you just loved him enough. She'd maintained her faith in humanity and monsters, a faith Damon wasn't sure he'd ever had. And somehow along the way, Elena Gilbert had decided that even Damon, the bad Salvatore brother, was worth saving.

            This seemingly fragile girl had maintained her faith, optimism, and purity even when her first love, his dear blood addict of a brother, went full-blown Ripper. Damon had watched as Stefan stomped all over Elena's heart, emotionally terrorizing her, and almost killed her. Even as Damon was fighting tooth and nail to save his brother's girl, Damon was falling even deeper in love with Elena.

            It wasn't until Damon watched Elena survive Ripper Stefan that he knew she was the girl for him.

            Somehow along the way, Elena had loved him enough to want to save him and to want him to be her life. She'd believed hard enough in _them_ , fervently, stubbornly, against all reason. She'd transformed him. She'd seen a future with Damon.

            A lot of people might think Damon had stopped killing indiscriminately because he was afraid of losing her. Or because she was his conscience.

            But that analysis of their relationship - which basically said they were a codependent mess, with Damon unable to be halfway decent without Elena in close-proximity, and Elena stuck as a little mother or enabler or some such bullshit.

            No - Elena was more than an angel on his shoulder. Anyone who thought that's all she was, or thought she was naive for loving him, they didn't know his girl. They didn't know the quiet strength of Elena Gilbert. And they didn't see the beauty of Damon & Elena. Even as humans, they were a force to be reckoned with. When he was with her in their crappy apartment, Damon knew he was part of something magic. It was almost supernatural, his need for her, and his intense thankfulness for knowing her.

            So, for Elena, he'd work long hours in a stupid bar. For her he'd eat salad or raw fish for dinner.

            And for her, he'd wake up early every morning. She'd decided when they moved here that the crack of dawn was a great time to run for five miles. He figured he owed to her, that he had to at least try to exercise, since he was breaking her diet every night. Besides, Damon had been in good shape when he'd turned human - his vampire body had functioned perfectly, and he was vain enough to want to keep himself trim.

            The first few days of running had been hell, but after that he'd gotten used to it. And each day it was easier to breathe while jogging. Each day his muscles ached a bit less than before. Until their morning run became not painful at all.

            Morning runs were Damon's favorite part of his day. Other than sex.

Jogging was such a modern activity, but it reminded him of riding his horse when he was a boy. Maybe he should buy Elena a horse. Hell, he could buy her a whole horse farm. He wasn't sure if she'd ever ridden. It didn't seem like kids did that very much anymore. Unless they were rich, or pretentious, or lived in Kentucky coal country.

            Damon liked the quiet of their morning runs, as they roamed around C'ville, finding new coffee shops and dive bars and hookah bars, and stores that sold stupid things like designer olive oil or vaping cigarettes. They didn't talk much on their runs, and always finished their loops at 7-11, so they could treat themselves to Slurpees. They never altered this morning ritual.

            It felt very peaceful. Very married. Even when Damon had gotten three hours of sleep, he let Elena drag him out of bed at 7 am, so he could feel like they fit together perfectly.

 

###

 

            This afternoon, Damon found himself bartending while his lone cook slaved in the back, frying up burgers and onion rings for the smattering of college students who apparently had nowhere better to be at 3 in the afternoon. Damon had been on his feet behind the bar since they'd opened for lunch at 11.

            He was reading a Jack London book, and trying to ignore a whiny coed, who'd been sitting across from him at the bar for the last hour, alone, nursing cheap whiskey.

            "So, this place is all yours?" the painfully skinny blond girl asked.

            Damon glanced up from his book long enough to nod. She was dressed in sweats and her long, straight hair hung in oily strands, as if she hadn't bothered to wash or comb it in a few days.

            "What's your name?" the girl asked. She may have been flirting, but she was the kind of girl who was so bad at flirting her intentions were unclear. Regardless, Damon was _so_ not interested, and so sick of the awkward attempts at flirtation directed at him, from many college girls, and a few college boys.

            None of them seemed to see his wedding ring off the bat, or maybe they didn't care. Maybe he should have spent the 20th century wearing a wedding ring to pick up chicks. But alas, it was too late for that cheap trick. Even if Damon wasn't a one-woman type of guy (at least when the woman was Elena), these kids seemed so _young_.

            Painfully young. Had he ever been that young? Maybe in 1864, but, really, Damon Salvatore had never been this kind of young. This kind of young hadn't existed in 1864, when he'd been 25 for the first time, or in 1854, when he'd been 15, or 1844, when he'd been 5.

            Elena had never seemed this young either, even though she'd been 17 when they met, a year younger than the UVA freshmen who flashed their fake IDs at Damon.

            Damon didn't care enough to tell the obviously underage to get lost. He served anyone who asked for a drink. Who the hell cared about teenagers drinking? He wasn't their brother or father. Though, if he'd knocked up either of the two human girls he'd slept with during the War, maybe he was the great-great-great grandfather of one of these idiots. Damon shivered at the thought.

            "Aren't you going to tell me your name?" the pathetic girl on his barstool asked.

            "Damon," he said, before going back to his book.

            "Aren't you going to ask my name?"

            He smiled but said nothing.

            "It's Marjorie."

            "Pleasure."

            "So, Damon. Aren't you kind of young to own a business?" she wanted to know, sipping her stiff drink and pasting on a fake-grownup expression.

            "Looks can be deceiving," Damon said.

            "How old are you?"

            "Well," he said with a sly smile. "I was born in 1839, so you do the math."

            The girl giggled. "You're cute," she said, slurring her words just a bit.

            He waggled his eyebrows at her and tried to return to Jack London, but she wasn't letting him alone.

            "You want to know why I'm here?" she asked.

            "Not particularly," Damon said.

            She kept talking anyway. "My boyfriend dumped me," she told him.

            Damon laughed harshly. As a vampire and then a newly re-humanized Damon in Mystic Falls, he'd spent plenty of time on the other side of the bar, overstaying his welcome on a barstool as he unloaded his personal problems onto bartenders. He'd never realized how annoying or uncomfortable for bartenders everywhere this practice of drunk people must be. To have to listen to this crap and not be an asshole. To be expected to dispense wisdom gleaned from many years of listening to other drunk people bitch. To be a therapist!

            Damon couldn't help laughing at the tipsy coed. He guessed he could knock therapist off his list of possible career choices if bar owner didn't work out.

            "It's not funny," Marjorie whined. She gulped the last of her drink down.

           Damon filled up her glass with top-shelf bourbon. Marjorie'd been drinking rail liquor all afternoon. So, he figured giving her a proper drink would make up for his utter lack of interest in her personal life.

            She gave him a watery smile and just stared at him, her pale blue eyes ridiculously big. She'd probably be pretty if she washed her hair and put on a nice dress instead of the sweats she was wearing now. A little makeup perhaps. In another life, Damon could have made a nice compelled girlfriend of her. She was probably quite tasty.

            And just the right amount of insecure to be manipulated easily.

            But that was another life.

            Now all he could say was, "Drink up, sweetheart. You'll feel better when you don't feel anymore."

            "Aren't you going to offer me some kind of patented bartender wisdom?" the girl asked.

            "I'm a bit short on wisdom these days," Damon said. But he did manage a real smile for the poor girl.

            A couple frat boys came up to get refills of their beers and pick up their onion rings. Marjorie glanced at them hopefully, but they didn't seem to notice her.

            After they'd sat back down at their table, Damon leaned towards her and said, with his most charming smile, "You can do better than those douchebags."

            Marjorie smiled shyly.

            Damon munched on a bowl of olives and cocktail onions as he sipped his whiskey sour. Light on the bourbon. Heavy on the ice and sour mix. His alcohol tolerance seriously sucked, and since bartending was absolute misery while sober, he had found that weak mixed drinks were the best way to maintain a buzz without ending up falling down drunk.

            His first few days working here for an eight-hour shift, he'd tried to drink his normal whiskey neat. That had resulted in Elena having to rescue a sloppy drunk Damon at the end of the end of the night and then force-feed him gatorade and aspirin in the morning, to ward off the mammoth hangover he woke up with.

            Marjorie kept staring at him. She thought she was being sly about it, but 178 years had taught Damon more than Marjorie's 20-some had taught her.

            He tried to go back to reading his book, but then she insisted on chattering. She wanted to find out what he was reading, and initiate all sorts of random small talk.

            "You're not from here, are you?" she asked after a while.

            "I'm from a lot of places," he said.

            "Where were you born?"

            "Mystic Falls," he said. And almost as a revelation he said, half to himself, "That's my home." When she looked at him blankly, he said, "It's a tiny, nothing town, a couple hours south of here."

            "I've never heard of it," the girl said.

            "Probably best for you," he said wryly, thinking of all the people who had died at every town event for eight years. Donovan had wisely decided to put a temporary moratorium on all town events. He'd told the town council that they just needed to get through a year without civilian deaths and then they could try another Founder's whatever.

            "And are you here in Charlottesville by yourself? Or did you bring someone?"

            Grateful he had a ring to get him out of this awkward pickup line, he raised his left hand and waggled his silver wedding ring at the poor coed.

            She tried to cover up her disappointment. Damon wished he could compel her to have some self-respect. Or at the very least he wished he could compel her to offer up an artery for his afternoon snack.

            Damon leaned towards the slack-haired blond girl and murmured, "You could do better than me too."

            The girl looked like she was about to cry.

            "Don't cry," Damon said. "Seriously, I'm a mess. I don't know why Elena puts up with me. And you clearly have a lot going for you. What are you studying?"

            Which of course was the wrong thing to say because it led to a long-winded explanation of what Cultural Anthropology was and why everyone should care a whole hell of a lot about it. Damon was about to die of boredom when the front door swung open and in walked a witch. A most welcome witch. Several days earlier than they'd expected her.

 

###

 

            "Bon-bon!" he shouted, leaping over the bar and running towards her. She'd been traveling for months, overseas. He grabbed Bonnie in a bear hug and swung her around. "God, when did you get heavy, woman?"

            Bonnie glared at him as he put her down. "It's not my fault you've lost your super strength, asshole," she snapped.

            "You look good," he said. "You okay?"

            She smiled a brave smile. "I'm pretty okay."

"I'm just saying, if you need someone to talk to about the absolute torture of waiting decades until you can see the love of your life again, I know a couple things."

            She laughed roughly. "Like how to become a serial killer and lose all touch with anything good in your personality?"

            He shrugged. "If that's the direction you want to go in, I'm your guy. I also learned how to dance. And you can't deny I'm a phenomenal dancer."

            She rolled her eyes. "So, this is the bar?"

            He waved his hand in a flourish. "This is the bar."

            "It's nice," she said half-heartedly.

            "It's hell," Damon said, rolling his eyes. "Can I get you a drink?"

            Bonnie nodded and followed him back to the bar.

            The blond girl was watching them, rapt with interest, as Bonnie grabbed the seat next to her.

            Damon poured a bourbon for Bonnie and freshened up the lonely girl's drink. "This is my friend Bonnie," he said. "And this is Marjorie, one of my most loyal patrons. Her boyfriend just dumped her, which clearly makes him an idiot, because she's well versed in Cultural Anthropology and she's had about six shots of bourbon in the last hour and has yet to fall off her bar stool. I like a woman who can hold her liquor."

            Bonnie gave Damon a look, as if to say he was being insensitive to the poor girl's plight. To Marjorie, she said, "You'll have to excuse Damon. He's just an asshole to everyone. And he's doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to romantic entanglements."

            Damon glared at Bonnie.

            Bonnie continued, "This idiot was so hung up on this one girl, who screwed him over in his youth, that he almost burned down his whole life. And mine."

            "Bon-bon, we don't need to dredge up old pain. I moved on to non-sociopathic women."

            "How long did it take you? 145 years? 150?"

            Damon shoved a bowl of peanuts at Bonnie. "Why don't you fill your mouth with something besides venom?"

            She stuck out her tongue at him before popping a peanut into her mouth.

            "When did you get back?" Damon asked after a while.

            "Last week."

            "And the trip was good?"

            "Have you been to Prague?" Bonnie asked.

            "Of course," Damon said, pouring a shot of bourbon into his Coke.

            "I thought that was going to be my favorite part. But I think Egypt beat it out."

            "Those crazy pyramids do have a way of putting things into perspective. There's something about standing on the ground and seeing this massive thing that people built. When I saw them the first time, I just felt tiny. And it was nice to feel like an ant," Damon said. And then he added, absentmindedly, "You didn't happen to bring Caroline with you, did you?"

            Bonnie shook her head. "I tried to drag her along? But she hasn't gotten out of bed all week."

            "What?" Damon snapped, his brows rising up violently. Stefan would kill him if Caroline wasn't all right in the end.

            "Ric took the girls to visit his parents," Bonnie said, fatigue invading her voice, the same dull tiredness that crept into any of their voices when they talked about anything Stefan-adjacent.     "She's alone at the boarding house. Caroline flat out refused to go with him. She said she was going to get ahead on the paperwork for the school."

            "Who's Caroline?" Marjorie asked.

            Damon's eyes widened at the blatant eavesdropping. Ignoring her, he said, "So what's the problem? Paperwork is like porn for Blondie. She lives to organize."

            "You know what the problem is," Bonnie said, popping more peanuts into her mouth.

            "Ooh, did she get dumped too?" the increasingly annoying blond anthropology coed said, butting in with such audacity Damon had to stop himself from grabbing her throat and squeezing.

            "No, goddammit, she did not get dumped!" Damon snapped.

            The girl looked like she was about to cry.

            Bonnie glared at him.

            "What?" he said. "She's the one who's butting into conversations and accusing my brother of dumping Caroline?"

            "She's not accusing anybody of anything," Bonnie snapped.

            "Your brother dumped Caroline?" the girl asked incredulously.

            Damon couldn't take it anymore. Instincts took over. Grabbing Marjorie by the shoulders, he looked hard into her eyes and said, "You are going to get up and walk away. You are going to forget this entire conversation. And then you'll go home, take a shower, do your hair up nicely, put on your best dress, something with a short skirt. And make sure to show off your boobs. They're nice. Then go out dancing. You'll shake your ass even if you're normally terrified of dancing. You'll meet a nice guy, not like your asshole of an ex-boyfriend. You'll choose a guy to talk to that will actually give you the time of day, so best look for a 6 or 7. Maybe an 8. You'll flirt effectively with him. And you'll leave me the hell alone."

            Her eyes didn't dilate. But she nodded nonetheless, got up, and walked out of the bar without saying another word.

            Bonnie burst into giggles. "Did you just try to compel that poor girl?"

            Damon waggled his eyebrows, saying, "Old habits die hard."

            "And did you suggest that she needed to find a 6 or 7, possibly an 8?"

            "She's not bad looking, but she's nothing special. And she's kind of weird. Hot trumps weird, but she's not hot she goes after a 9 or 10, he's not going to give her the time of day."

            "Damon!"

            "You have to admit I gave her some good advice about washing her hair and finding a sexy dress," he said, tossing an olive up in the air and catching it in his mouth.

            Bonnie laughed and laughed. "I have to call Elena and tell you tried to compel somebody."

            He grinned. "It worked."

            "So why did you need Caroline here?"

            Damon groaned. "I've got a health inspector coming tomorrow. I could use some real compulsion. Somehow I don't think that little trick is going to work."

            Bonnie raised her eyebrows. "And what in god's name is wrong with your kitchen?"

            Damon shrugged. "I have no idea. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. I haven't read the rulebook."

            "Damon!"

            "What? I never said I wanted to own a fucking bar. If anyone dies of food poisoning, you can blame my wife. And then you can hire her to deal with the sick people."

            Bonnie raised her eyebrows. "Okay," she told him. "That's so completely irresponsible I don't even know what to say."

            "I have millions in the bank. It's not like I couldn't hire someone to run this dump. OR get me out of food poisoning lawsuit. Why can't I just be a retired vampire?" he grumped.

            Bonnie shook her head. "In the interest of not having anyone die of food poisoning, why don't you show me the kitchen?" she asked. "I'm sure we can sort this out. And then we might want to think about a different long term career choice for you."

            "And what's your career choice?"

            "Shut up."

            "You shut up."

            Bonnie smiled. "I missed you, Salvatore."

            He grabbed her waist and hoisted her over the bar, hiding his groan as he mildly strained his back. "Right back at you, Bon-Bon," Damon said, wrapping his arm around her waist. "Elena's going to lose it when she sees you. She'll be here around 8."

            Bonnie grinned and squeezed him back before dragging him into his hellhole of a kitchen.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We finally get Elena’s point of view in this chapter. From this point on, expect the POV to alternate between Damon and Elena, though it's not always a set pattern (meaning that it's not like one if one scene is in Elena's POV, the next one will not automatically be in Damon's).

 

**Chapter 3**

_November 2017_

_Mystic Falls, Virginia_

 

      Elena arrived at the Salvatore house around midnight.

      As Bonnie had described the state of Caroline’s grief and depression, Elena felt sick with guilt. It wasn’t a good time to take a week off classes, or even a day, but it also wasn’t a good time to care more about classes than her friend. Especially when said friend was widowed because of Elena. So, Elena felt bound to seeing Caroline.

      Elena was hanging on by a thread in all her classes, struggling to keep up after missing the last couple years of college. Technically she shouldn’t even be in med school. She should be finishing her sophomore year. But Ric had helped her forge transcripts and Caroline had compelled the admissions committee, so that she could live her dream.

      But fuck that. Elena and Bonnie and Damon spent all night and the next day and into the night, talking about what to do with Caroline before Elena grabbed the car keys and left, not listening to Damon’s pleas to slow down, get some sleep, go in the morning. She hadn’t slept the night before and she wasn’t going to sleep until she knew Caroline was okay.

      The door of the Salvatore boarding house was unlocked. When she walked in, it was quiet. Too quiet.

      The fire was out, and the house was cold, as if no one had bothered to turn on the heat since Ric and the girls had gone to visit his parents. The downstairs was in disarray — boxes of school supplies strewn all over the living room and library, some opened, some not. It was chaos, which was not like Caroline at all. The tables piled high with collections of grimoires, vampire hunting equipment, and a random assortment of witchy talismans and potions. Elena thought she spied a human scalp with hair still clinging to it, and wondered why Caroline and Ric thought they should give their pupils nightmares before they even began their studies.

      Elena yelled out Caroline’s name, but found her nowhere. She was about to start searching the grounds when she checked once more in Stefan’s old room. And there she was. She’d almost missed her because her old friend was so still.

      For a moment, Elena was afraid Caroline was dead. She was gray and partially shriveled.

      Desiccated.

      Halfway under the covers. No wonder she hadn’t answered the phone. She wouldn’t have been able to if she’d tried.

      Elena rushed to the bed, shaking her vampire friend, trying to wake her, but afraid she would break her, somehow, that Caroline’s body would crumble. But Caroline’s body was hard, like a raisin. Elena began to cry as she held onto Caroline, unsure what to do.

      Caroline must have refused to feed, or even move, and so she’d ended up in Stefan’s old bed, drying into a vampire mummy. Lost in so much grief that she’d allowed herself to die bit by bit. Had she done this on purpose? Caroline was always so strong, so plucky, so damned optimistic, it could drive a normal person insane. It was hard to imagine how she could just lie in bed long enough that she’d dry into a vampire raisin. But maybe without the girls and Alaric, without Elena or Bonnie or even Damon, the quiet had begun to close in on Caroline. Maybe Care needed people to talk to in order to be optimistic. Maybe she needed someone to take care of, to focus her nervous, control-freak energies on.    

      After what seemed like an eternity, her friend’s eyes opened. Caroline was still in there. And she looked terrified.

      Elena panicked. She thought of running down to the fridge for blood bags, but she didn’t want to leave Caroline for even a moment. Her friend looked like a wounded animal, or a child. Elena wasn’t strong enough to carry the vampire downstairs in search of blood. So, Elena did the only thing she could. She found a letter opener on Stefan’s desk, sliced open her palm, and offered her own now-human blood to Caroline. This girl she’d known since birth, who’d once been an annoying normal cheerleader, who was now an eternal monster (thanks in large part to Elena). But most of all, she was her friend. Most of all, she needed Elena.

      And so, Elena let Caroline feed on her blood.

      There was a long moment when she held her hand to Caroline’s lips and nothing happened. Caroline remained rigid, only her eyes alive. Then her tongue darted out of her mouth to lick Elena’s blood off her palm. Elena cupped her non-bleeding hand behind Caroline’s head, lifting her head slightly so that she could drink. Caroline began to suck, first slowly, then faster. She was clearly starving. Elena tried not to gasp as Caroline drank from her faster and faster.

      Elena was trying to breathe slowly and evenly, telling herself that Caroline would never hurt her, that she’d offered her blood to Stefan and Damon years ago, and she’d been fine

      Then Caroline bit her. Hard. “Caroline—” Elena snapped, before she could tell herself to be gentle and forgiving.

      Caroline pulled back, looking like she’d been struck. “Oh, god, Elena. I’m so sorry! Oh god, I could have hurt you,” she said in a hoarse, croaking voice. And with that Caroline was crying.

      “Care — stop it. It’s fine. I’m fine. Let’s just get you downstairs and look for a blood bag. Do you think you can walk?    For a long moment, Caroline looked vacant, almost confused. Then she nodded and leaned on Elena as they made their way down to the big refrigerator in the lower floor, which was thankfully still full of blood-bags.

      They loaded themselves down with A-positive, Caroline’s favorite, and then settled in the living room. Elena draped blankets around Caroline, who still was freezing to the touch. She built a fire while Caroline lay on the couch, rehydrating and re-nourishing herself.

      “We should binge-watch TV. There must be a million things I missed while I was sleeping. There’s still a bunch of pop culture references I don’t get,” Elena said, babbling because she didn’t know what else to say. “Like, did Parks and Rec end?”

      Caroline started giggling, but there was no humor in the giggle.

      “What?”

      “You found me vampire-desiccating in my bed, and now you’re worried about Parks and Rec?”

      “It’ll be fun, Care. Remember fun? It will be non-vampire related, non-magic related, non-life-threatening fun. I’ll make popcorn,” Elena insisted, feeling a bit of actual hope in her voice, mixed with her frantic desire to distract Caroline, and herself, from grief and all things that go bump in the night. “Maybe I can even find some nail polish. We’ll do a makeover. You could use it, no offense.”

       Caroline nodded, her face still void of emotion, but she smiled a small smile. She went back to slurping A-positive as Elena got them set up with popcorn, candy, wine, nail polish, and ten hours of Parks and Rec.

###

            It was three in the morning, and Damon was still at the bar. The building was empty except for him, and all around him he smelled the stench of cigarettes, liquor, and beer. Music played on the record player he’d lodged behind the bar — sad old honky-tonk from the ‘40s. Contemporary pop played on his speakers all day and night long, and he was sick of it. He was sick of modernity. So, he’d bought an old record player at a store downtown that catered to hipsters and pretentious college students. He’d spent hours thumbing through the racks of records, assembling a collection that ranged from classical to Elvis. Maybe Damon was an old man at heart, but he’d never been able to connect, truly connect with music after that first wave of raw and simple rock’ n’roll. Sure he could dance to modern music. But right now, when his very soul hurt, he needed something real.

            He’d been drunk hours ago, when he’d done shots with a few douchebag college students and hustled a couple of particularly entitled frat boys at pool. Now he was just numb and exhausted. He’d sent his staff home when the bar closed at two, and was now cleaning up and balancing the register because Elena was in Mystic Falls and their crappy apartment was just too quiet without her.

            Damon had felt useless as Elena was rushing around, packing a suitcase, fretting about how this trip might make her flunk one or two or every single final exam. Damon had suggested that once they got Caroline back on her feet, Blondie could compel Elena’s professors into thinking Elena was a model, straight-A student (though in truth she was barely passing). While Elena fretted about her personal inadequacy, Damon wished he could be the one to compel the teachers. He wanted to fix everything for his girl. And he hated feeling so damned useless all the time.

            Like, for instance, right now, as he was trying and failing to take inventory of his alcohol. His mind kept wandering. As he lost count of his liquor bottles for the third time, he cursed and he started over. Again. He couldn’t blame this on alcohol. He was completely sober.

            Had he gotten stupider when he became human? His memory used to be better. Three times as fast. Everything about his mind used to move more swiftly. Everything used to be so fluid.

            Dammit. He’d lost count again.

            He missed Elena. It had only been 24 hours, but he felt her absence profoundly. When she was in the coma, he’d gotten used to her not being there. He’d gotten used to not speaking with her for all those years. But now — it was like a part of him was missing. And he felt this paranoia, like maybe she’d disappear again. Or end up in another magical coma. Maybe she’d be kidnapped by a crazy vampire, or Klaus, or some witch interested in her doppelganger blood.

            Or, maybe she’d just wise and leave him.

            Why should such a nice girl, with such a beautiful future ahead of her, tie herself down to a reformed serial killer? Damon kept waiting for her to smarten up and realize that now that she was a human, she could do better than Damon Salvatore, born in 1839, a felon dozens and dozens of times over, and loaded down with an insane amount of emotional baggage. If she wanted a nice normal human husband, she should try someone completely different. Someone who had never been a vampire. Maybe never even tried to snap someone’s neck. Someone who hadn’t even daydreamed about murder.

            Like that guy she’d dated briefly in college, when she’d thought Damon was dead and Alaric had compelled away her memories of their dysfunctional relationship. Liam, the stupidly cocky pre-med sophomore, the kind of cocky you can only be when you’re young, spoiled, and have never been tested.

            Last week, Elena had let slip, oh so casually, that Liam was once again her classmate. He’d graduated with honors from Whitmore, then spent a few years volunteering with Doctors without Borders before enrolling in UVA’s medical school the same semester Elena did. Damon found the timing suspicious. Maybe he was working for some supernatural … something.

            If only Damon could compel the dirt out of idiot-Liam. But Damon was _nothing_ now. No powers. No skills. A useless waste of space.

            Maybe Caroline could interrogate Mr. Future Doctor. But Caroline wouldn’t get out of bed.

            On impulse, Damon snatched his phone off the bar and began dialing.

            It took a few rings, but Alaric answered. “Damon!” came Alaric’s peeved voice over a scratchy connection. He sounded half-asleep. “Do you realize what time it is?”

            “Well, hello to you too.”

            “Seriously, man. What’s going on? Did you drunk dial me?” Damon could picture Ric’s eyes wide and angry.

            “I’m not drunk,” Damon snapped. “Do you know how much hangovers suck? I’d completely forgotten about hangovers. I’d forgotten about regular headaches too, and paper-cuts. And illness! Do you know that I had a cold last week? It was almost as bad as a werewolf bite.”

            Alaric sighed. “Is this an emergency? Because in case you haven’t noticed, I have kids to wake me up in the middle of the night.”

            Damon felt rage bubbling up inside him, the same rage he’d been suppressing all day. “I was just trying to figure out why in hell — in hell — you decided to leave Caroline at my house all alone for weeks on end,” he snapped. “Do you know that she won’t get out of bed?”

            “What?”

            He pounded on the bar in frustration, wanting to freaking murder his best friend. He wanted to grab Alaric by the throat and just squeeze until the other man couldn’t breathe, until he was gasping and scared, until he felt as helpless as Damon felt right now. But all Damon could do was say, “Elena took off all her classes today to go make sure that the mother of _your_ children is not dead, or flipping her switch, or eating the gardeners.”

            He could hear Alaric deflating. “Fuck,” his friend whispered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

            “And I don’t need to remind you what happened when Caroline’s mom died,” Damon murmured, his voice soft but threatening.

            “Look, I’m sorry. I just. My mom has been begging to see the girls, man,” Ric sputtered.

            “Why not bring Caroline? Mothers love Caroline.”

            Ric groaned.

            Damon poured himself a real drink and gulped it down.

            Finally, Ric said, “She wouldn’t come. The last time we visited, my mom was commenting on how young Caroline looked. She wanted to know if she’d had plastic surgery. She thought it was a bit early to start going the plastic route.”

            Damon stared around the empty bar. This was a problem he was far too familiar with. He’d never known a vampire who had children, human children that is, children who would someday look older than their mother. And he’d never known anyone who could maintain the same cover for more than a few years. For most of his vampire existence, Damon had lived on the fringes of the human world, not interested in pretending to be one of them. Stefan was different — he tried out many lives over the years, but these identities he created for himself couldn’t last. You had to move on before the locals became suspicious. When the brothers returned to Mystic Falls over the centuries, they didn’t use the same identity from generation to generation. They might use their real names, but it was understood that they were now the sons or grandsons of their former selves.

            Damon poured himself a drink and asked, “When did your mother start asking strange questions?”

            Damon could hear Alaric getting up, rummaging around. He seemed to be pouring himself a drink. “I don’t know. It’s not like she actually suspects something, or it even matters that much to her. She doesn’t know about vampires, so she doesn’t have any reason to be suspicious. She just noticed that something was up. But it got Caroline all upset,” he said after a long pause. “I mean, the age thing has always been an issue. My mom was furious when she found out about Caroline. Thought I’d seduced a student. And she doesn’t know that the girls are really Jo’s, you know.”

            “I didn’t,” Damon said, wondering why he’d never asked. It was funny, now that he was human, that he cared about stuff like Alaric’s mother.

            “I mean, what was I supposed to tell her?” Ric was going on. “Should I say: Mom, my wife was brutally murdered by her sociopathic witch-syphon brother, but not before her bizarre coven, who all also died at the same time, magically transported two fetuses into a college student/vampire?”

            Damon nodded. “So, what does she think?”

            “That I cheated on Jo with Caroline. We hadn’t told my parents about the pregnancy anyway. They’re old fashioned. They weren’t at the wedding, so they don’t know all the gory details. And then when Caroline was pregnant, I tried to act like it was a new relationship, but my mom can tell time apparently. She realized the babies were conceived while Jo was still alive.”

            “So your mom thinks you’re an asshole who cheated on his fiancé?” Damon asked.

            “Seriously, man,” Alaric was saying, “Can you just be helpful? For once? Just once. Just tell me how to deal with this problem.”

            Damon considered it as he poured himself another drink. “Plastic surgery isn’t a bad idea. But other than that, I don’t know, man.”

            “How long could you do it?” Ric asked. “When you were a vampire? How long before people got suspicious?”

            “That I wasn’t aging? Five years. Sometimes less. Sometimes more. But I rarely stuck around that long anyway. I was in Mystic Falls for eight. That’s probably a record. But you have to realize, I was 25 when I turned.”

            “Why does that matter?”

            “Because dear, sweet Caroline was only 17. The older you are when you turn, the longer you can stay in one place. I look 25, but I can easily pass for 30, and maybe even 35. If I wanted to appear older, I could dye my hair. But if your baseline is 17? There’s less wiggle room. When Caroline is supposed to be 30, or 40, she just won’t look that old. At some point, you’re going to have to pretend to the world that Caroline is someone else. A niece. A cousin. A friend of the girls. Your daughter. Maybe someday your granddaughter. At some point, she can’t be their mother.”

            Ric sighed.

            They talked on the phone about meaningless bullshit for another few minutes before Damon decided to force the issue. “Look, I’m glad you’re doing the family thing. Yippee for family. And grandparents. You’re creating wonderful memories for Lizzie and Josie. But dude, I need you back in Mystic Falls tonight. Caroline is drowning. She needs her children.”

            Ric sighed. “I thought Elena was with her,” he said, voice dripping with physical, mental and emotional fatigue.

            Damon shook his head as he forced himself to push away the bourbon, to stop drinking. He needed his wits about him. After a pause he said, “Elena can stay two days. Max. Then she’s in danger of flunking out of something-something-anatomy.”

            “What about Bonnie?”

            “Bonnie is grieving too. She helped me get the bar in shape so I could pass a health inspection, and then she took off. Something about promising Enzo she’d backpack through Mexico. She’s treading water, man, and I get the impression that if she stays in one place too long she’ll explode.” It had also seemed like Bonnie didn’t want to be around him and Elena, that seeing them together, and happy, and married, reminded her of what she didn’t have, and what she’d lost when his brother had killed Enzo.

            And oh yeah, Bonnie was getting the cure for Enzo before Stefan had killed him. Bonnie and Enzo were supposed to have exactly what Damon and Elena had right now. So it was all awkward.

            “What about you?” Alaric asked now.

            Damon frowned. “You want me to talk to Caroline about her feelings?”

            Alaric laughed. “You are occasionally not a complete dick. You could try. I can’t leave tonight. My parents are getting old. I want them to know my kids. And in case you haven’t noticed, we haven’t had any opportunities for vacations. Ever.”

            Damon could feel his eyeballs want to pop out. “Stefan is going to come back from wherever the fuck he is and kill you if you don’t get on a plane tonight!”

            Alaric was quiet. Too quiet. Then he said, “Screw you.”

            “What?”

            “Screw you. You are the most selfish person in the history of selfish people,” Ric, his voice devoid of emotion.

            Damon wanted to throw his glass across the room, but realized if he did that he would have to clean it up. Being responsible sucked balls.

            “My brother died so that we could all have these nice normal lives,” he said softly, menacingly. He spent all day every day trying not to think about Stefan. If he thought about Stefan, he started imagining taking off his daylight ring so he could go burn up in the sun. But he didn’t need a daylight ring anymore. A sunburn wouldn’t kill him, so he’d have to slit his throat, or jump off a building, or maybe just drown in the bathtub. Swallowing hard so he wouldn’t let these feelings out, Damon said, “We owe him.”

            “And what are you doing today, Damon?”

            “I’m training a bar manager,” Damon said, trying to sound busy and important.

            “What do you think you could possibly teach a bar manager? Does the person have experience?”

            Damon laughed roughly. “He has five years.”

            “Sounds like he should be training you. Why don’t you just leave him alone, and go visit Caroline,” Ric spat out.

            “She doesn’t want me. She wants her kids.”

            “If you’re worried, go talk to her. Relieve Elena. Be human. Or at least pretend to be,” Alaric said.

            Damon could feel his voice about to break as he said, “But Stefan —”

            He could almost hear his friend shaking his head. “Stefan wanted this. He found peace.”

            “She’s a widow,” Damon said softly. “She’s my brother’s widow. And it eats me up inside. Because it’s all my fault. It should have been me. But he just insisted on being a fucking martyr, with his hero hair and his holier-than-thou ideals.”

            Damon could hear Alaric pour himself another drink. Was this his third drink? Should he worry that his friend might be an alcoholic? Good god, was Damon even Damon anymore if thought about shit like that? “Look, man. It’s not your fault,” Ric was saying. “You tried to sacrifice yourself, right?”

            Damon nodded, unable to speak.

            “He just beat you to it,” Ric said softly.

            Damon put his head down on the bar and cried, covering his phone’s microphone so his friend wouldn’t realize how much his soul was breaking, how much Damon couldn’t do this, couldn’t live this life his brother had forced on him.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started out this fic thinking it would be over after 3 or 4 chapters, and the premise -- ex-vampires adjusting to new human lives, and integrating themselves fully into the mundane realities of jobs and marriage in 2017 -- meant that Damon was a more central character than Elena. His adjustment was simply more difficult -- because he was born in 1839, had been a vampire since 1864, and she was born in 1992 and had only been a vampire for a few years. 
> 
> But as the story progressed and took on a life of its own, I eventually developed a supernatural plot, Elena has become just as integral to the fic as Damon. I do think that Damon is a much more fleshed out character than Elena, in the show. Damon is arguably the most complex character in TVD canon, and the character who changed the most of eight seasons of the TV show. (Though you could make a case for Stefan, Caroline, or Bonnie.) I think the writers did a disservice to Elena's character multiple times, and I think it's a shame that some people in the fandom don't like Elena, etc etc. Nina Dobrev was brilliant as both Elena and Katherine, and I think the writers missed a lot of opportunities for Elena to grow, change, and evolve. I do think she evolved over the course of the six seasons Dobrev was on the show, but I think more could have been done with her character. I see Elena as incredibly brave and resilient, and special in her ability to see the good in others, to see hope and light in the darkness, to continually demand that Stefan and Damon try to redeem themselves, to not give up on her friends, to be, as Caroline once said, "Elena Gilbert: savior of the cursed and the damned."
> 
> In this fic, I'm trying to flesh out Elena, and have her come into her own as a young woman. And of course I'm having a ball with Damon, and trying to get him to grow and evolve as he adapts to life as a human.
> 
> You can also expect the world to open up, and for other TVD characters to begin popping up in subsequent chapters, including but not limited to Bonnie, Caroline, Alaric, and Jeremy.


	4. Chapter 4

 

_November 2017_

      Elena and Caroline were halfway through the third season of Parks and Rec, and a case of wine, when the front door of the Salvatore house flew open. Elena jumped half off the couch. Caroline was asleep, her head on Elena’s shoulder, but she didn’t wake up, even as Elena’s whole body began to shake with a mixture of relief and overwhelming emotion. As Damon walked in, it was like something inside her, deep, deep inside, broke open, and she began to cry. Like she felt able to cry. By being here, he was somehow giving her a chance to stop being perfect.

      Tears fell down Elena's face as she tried to extricate herself from Caroline without waking her friend.

      “What’s wrong?” Damon whispered.

      Elena just shook her head as she finally managed to get up. He wrapped his arms around her.

      “What’s wrong, babe?” he asked again.

      “I don’t know,” she whispered, trying and failing to stop crying.

      “Let’s get you to bed,” he said after a while, his voice soft and gentle as he guided her upstairs to his old room. Laying her down on the bed, he said, “Just the way I left it. Weird being here though, like this.”

      “Human?” she said.

      “Yeah. And married to you.”

      He climbed on the bed and lay down beside her, propping himself up on one elbow.

      She let herself cry. Ugly tears. She let herself sob, until she felt empty and naked inside. When it felt like there was nothing left in her, she muttered, “It’s all my fault.”

      “No, it’s not,” he said.

      “You think he died for you, but it was my body trapped in the school,” she said.

      Damon sighed. “He was protecting the whole town, Elena.”

      “He wouldn’t have been here if it weren’t for me. Neither one of you would have stuck around,” Elena said.

      “I don’t think playing this game is helpful,” Damon snapped.

      She frowned at him. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten all the things you did when I was asleep. If I’d been awake, you’d never have killed Tyler. And if we hadn’t been together, you’d have left long ago.”

      Damon sighed again and threw up his hands. “I’m sorry for reverting to being a sociopathic murderer.”

      “I know you’re sorry,” she said, too exhausted to put much feeling into her words. “Everybody’s sorry. It’s just — you and me are playing happy human house and my friends are miserable. Caroline is a fucking widow. I don’t know to handle that. How am I supposed to handle that?”

      His eyes were sad and extra blue as he kissed her forehead and lay his head down on the pillow. “I know I don’t deserve you,” Damon said. “But if you’ll let me, I’ll try my fucking best to be worthy of you.”

      Elena bit her lip and reached her hand out to touch his face. “You are worthy. But it’s not about me. You’re worthy of this life.”

      “You just forgive a lot. More than he should.” He closed his eyes, as if willing himself to be different.

      “No,” she said, kissing one eyelid and then the next. “I always saw it. You always had this light inside you. You always had this capacity to do good things. To be a hero. Even when you were a sociopathic murderer.” She kissed his throat, then moved to the side of his neck and ran her tongue over the skin covering his carotid artery. She could no longer feel or hear the blood pulsing inside him.

      His eyes still closed, he smiled just a tiny bit. He was so damned sexy when he felt guilty about something, not because of his guilt but because of his all-too-human-vulnerability. He was so damned sexy when he was vulnerable. And human. She’d loved vampire Damon with all her heart. He’d made her feel larger than life. He’d given her a passion and a love that consumed her. Sometimes he’d made her feel like she was in free-fall, plunging head-first into the unknown. But human Damon — he inspired a whole new sensation. He still made her feel reckless. His love, and her love for him, still consumed her. But instead of being larger than life and inspiring that feeling within Elena, he made her feel equal to life. He made her feel alive, human, feet firmly on the ground. He made her feel like everything she did mattered.

      Years ago, Alaric had told her that because she was human again, and her life was now finite, her life had meaning again. Damon must feel the same thing. She knew he’d loved the infinite, and vampire strength, and vampire speed, and the extreme superpower tha was compulsion. She knew he’d even loved being the predator. The top of the food chain. But he’d been willing to give it all up for her. Even though Stefan had forced the cure on Damon to save his brother from sacrificing himself, Damon had chosen that life years ago. It had been his choice to be human. It had been his choice to have this one life with her.

      Elena could feel her blood pulsing throughout her body. She could feel her whole body tingle as she ran a finger down his chest. His black t-shirt clung to his skin. “It’s weird being human again,” she murmured. “When you turn me on, it’s like I’m buzzing. And I feel this urgency.”

      He smiled more. He opened his eyes and his eyes were smiling. Damon said, “I used to be able to draw it out forever. Even with super fast vamp sex, I could make it last.”

      “I know,” she said with a laugh.

      “But now …”

      “It’s like every part of your body wants it right now?” she said.

      “Yes.”

      “Me too.” Elena sat up, pulling her blouse off in such a hurry that she popped a button off. She threw it on the floor as she straddled him and grabbed his t-shirt, pulling it up and over his head with less grace than she’d like but she couldn't wait, not one more second. Her body wouldn’t stop buzzing. In fact, everything was getting faster. If they didn’t act fast, her heart might jump out of her chest.

      Damon laughed as he sat up to help her strip his clothes from his body. She kissed him, and there were lots of emotions running through her. She still felt a little sad, a little guilty, a little confused. But she also felt head over heels in love with this reformed murderer, despite knowing exactly who he was, this man who had given up depravity for her, who had remade his life for her, who was now willing to be ordinary for her. Because she knew she hadn’t really changed him — she’d just brought him back to the man he’d been before Katherine, and years without meaning, had stolen his humanity. She’d watched him turn human again. Even back when he’d still been a vampire, Elena had watched that humanity trickle in until it was a flood of goodness. She wasn't an idiot. She knew he'd never be a saint. Even as a human, Damon Salvatore was a mercurial pool of emotions and intentions. He had the capacity to do terrible things, and there were very few people who he cared enough about to not sacrifice.

      But she had accepted all that and more when she'd decided to let herself love him.

      And now Elena Gilbert had one human life to share with Damon Salvatore. And that one human life was awesome. And he was sexy as hell. And his eyes — his eyes still gave her butterflies. She could imagine him giving her butterflies when she was 60 or 80 or 100.

      Very sexy butterflies.

      She kissed him like her life depended on it. He wrapped his arms around her. She could feel him hardening beneath her. And then they were a flurry of activity. Him yanking down her skirt and flipping her over so that he was on top of her. Her gasping as their lovemaking began in earnest. Her running her nails over his back. Him kissing her naked breasts like they were sacred objects. Her grabbing his face clumsily and kissing him deep and long as she felt her body and soul shudder. Worn out, she collapsed against the pillow and then Damon was biting his lip to keep from screaming out (and waking Caroline). His eyes almost popped out of their sockets. Her body tensed as his did. She thought she was done, but his frantic, frenzied, somewhat inelegant climax made her crazy again. As he collapsed on her in exhaustion, she arched her back once more, reaching towards him.

      Damon laughed as he raised his head from her chest, to look at her. “Really?” he asked.

      Elena felt like every part of her was on fire. She nodded and whispered, “Kiss me,” her voice shaking as the orgasm built within her.

      He kissed her. She tasted blood where he'd bitten his lip. It was a strangely familiar taste. Not exactly how it had tasted during her vampire years. But close enough. The blood turned her on in a whole new way. She ran her tongue along the tiny cut. “You know I never thought I’d like being a vampire,” she whispered as the climax hit her hard and fast, like a bus driving off a cliff. “But you were there. You helped me like it. I remember the blood. It was insane how good it made me feel.”

      She closed her eyes but knew he was smiling. Elena lost all control. She was hurtling through time and space. She was everywhere at once. She was fast and slow. She was breaking into a million pieces and then reassembling bit by bit, limb by limb. She was consuming him.

      When she opened her eyes, she realized that she’d bitten him harder than he'd bitten himself. Elena could still taste the mix of salty and metallic. He was laughing as he wiped the blood off his lips. “Oh babe,” she said, climbing off him so she could lie down beside him. “I guess I’m still a vampire."          

      “Nah,” Damon said, lifting his arm so she could rest her head on his chest as he pulled her close and held her tight. “I’m just that sexy.”

      And she laughed. Was it possible to laugh in a specifically human way? Because even though she’d bitten him, every part of her felt human. Small, finite, clumsy, fragile. Yet this mortality was her greatest gift. Her breakable body gave her a power she’d never felt as a vampire. The power — the intense need —  to make the moment matter. To find meaning in all the little things that make a human life worth living. Like the way his chest hairs tickled her cheek. Like the way she could feel him breathing hard. His sweat now mixed with hers. His clumsy humanness mixed with her clumsy humanness. Damon's monstrously big bed felt like her whole world.

 

_January 2018_

###

      It was eight o’clock on a Friday night and Damon stood behind the bar with his new manager, Sajen, a bespectacled guy, who’d shown up for his shift wearing shorts. Again.

            Damon never wore shorts and didn’t understand them on men. Or women unless they had great legs like Elena. Really, there was only a small portion of the adult population that should ever wear short pants. Or yoga pants for that matter.

            “Seriously, dude,” Damon was saying now as Sajen mixed margaritas for a group of pretty little coeds. “Couldn’t you wear a pair of jeans?”

            Sajen shook his head. “These are comfortable.”

            “It’s January.”

            “They’re still comfortable.”

            “And you think this is the way to pick up women? You’re single, right?”

            Sajen nodded. “My life’s a little complicated right now. Don’t know if I’m dating material.”

            “Well, the shorts don’t help. Short pants on kids, fine, whatever, maybe not in January. But you? This is the kind of crap your generation pulls that I don’t get,” Damon said as he sipped a club soda and then grabbed his cup full of olives, to munch on in frustration. "Pretty soon you're going to be coming to work in flip flops and talking about hashtag this, hashtag that."

            Sajen frowned. “Aren’t we the same age? You’re thirty, right?”

            Damon shrugged. His age was getting to be a complicated matter. Truthfully he was 178 years old. Biologically he was more like 25. But if he claimed to be 25 now, citizens of Mystic Falls (those who weren't dead of a litany of supernatural causes), would be confused. Because that was Elena's age. And Stefan's fake age. If Damon was 25 now, he would have been 17 when he moved back to Mystic Falls. But it was only Stefan who'd claimed to be a kid. Damon had been his guardian. So when Caroline had compelled the DMV, Social Security administration, and passport office to forge his paperwork and official identification, they'd settled on 30. Which made him 22 when he'd reemerged in Mystic Falls. “I’m an old soul,” he said at last.

            The coeds came to collect their margaritas. One lingered at the bar, looking up from her drink every so often at Damon or Sajen. Damon twirled his wedding ring. Sajen was wiping down the bar, seemingly oblivious. Damon murmured to him, "That is a girl waiting for you to make a move."

            Sajen shook his head. "You make a move," he snapped.

            "I'm married," Damon was saying when Sajen smacked the bar in frustration. He was staring at the main entrance like there was a snake coming in the door.

            “Oh fuck,” Sajen said.

            Damon whipped his head around to see a pretty woman with curly red hair leading a red-haired child inside and towards the bar.

            “Whatever happens,” Sajen was saying, “I’m sorry.”

            The woman rushed right up to them and threw a child’s backpack on the bar, almost knocking over a beer bottle that belonged to a yuppie who had been sitting there for an hour, looking more and more pathetic. The bag had a picture of that damned singing snowman on it.

            The little girl looked embarrassed to be there. She was about five. Or eight. Or ten. Damon didn’t really know how old kids were supposed to look.

            “It was your weekend,” the woman sputtered at Sajen. “And I’ve decided that we are sticking to the original schedule.”

            “But we already switched,” Sajen sputtered back. “I don’t have a sitter.”

            “I don’t care. _I_ have a date.”

            “And you have to throw that in my face?”

            Damon would have laughed if this situation didn’t affect him negatively. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he snapped. “Am I to understand that you have a kid and that this woman thinks she can drop her off in my bar? _My_ bar.”

            The woman laughed unkindly. “Not my fault where he works.”

            “Molly,” Sajen began, but the woman was already walking away.

            She turned back for a moment to hug the girl and then tell Sajen when and where she was picking the kid up on Monday morning. As she walked away, Sajen stared blankly at the woman's retreating back.

            Damon examined the tiny human she'd left behind. The girl wore a long-sleeved t-shirt advertising the mining-craft video game Sajen talked about all the time, and shorts. Seriously. It was January. What was up with this family? Her red hair was in braids on either side of her head, tied with white yarn. Something about that yarn, the hair so bright it looked unreal, and the girl's defiant expression reminded Damon of a child he'd known many years ago. The Forbes girl, the youngest, who liked to follow Damon around when he supervised the slaves in his father's orchard. Before the war. That girl must have died a hundred years ago, at least.

            This girl looked up at him defiantly. “I’m Alex,” she said. "And don't call me cute. I'm going to be six next month."

            “I’m guessing you’re still too young to work the bar or wait tables.”

            She shrugged.

            Sajen cleared his throat, saying, “I had no idea that was going to happen.”

            “Clearly," Damon snapped. “This is the kind of thing I could get sued for you. You do know that?”

            Sajen nodded.

            “So do you have someone to call, to come get her?”

            Sajen looked terrified and Damon was relieved to see that he still had the ability to instill fear in others. Sajen hurried around the bar and picked up the little girl, placing her on a bar stool, promising to find someone. He began a flurry of phone calls. No one was available to watch the kid tonight.

            As Damon was trying to decide what to do about this situation, he poured a glass of milk for the child. He had to admit she was a pretty child. A brown-haired, brown-eyed woman, with perfect olive skin, sat down on the next barstool, raising her eyebrows at this little scene. Elena smiled at Damon, saying, “You guys stopped checking ID’s?”

            He grinned at her, noticing once again how beautiful she was, how her hair framed her face, how her perfect breasts seemed to spill out of her v-neck top. Was she wearing some sort of special bra? Man oh man, he loved the modern world.

 

###

           

 

 

      As Damon climbed into their bed at two in the morning, Elena felt nervous. And young. Younger than she’d felt in a long time. She had something to tell him, and she wasn’t sure how he was going to react. She’d felt a bit strange, just a bit off balance, for weeks now, and this morning she’d been a mess, but she’d written it off as nerves over her first big test of the spring semester. Even if it wasn't the first morning she'd spent bent over the toilet. But then, tonight, while babysitting Sajen’s daughter, something had clicked inside her. A realization.

      She felt drawn to the child in a very specific way.

      Elena had taken Alex to see the new Pixar movie, and then out for ice cream even though it was too late for a five-year-old child to be awake. When it seemed like Alex was forcing herself to stay up, Elena suggested they go home to Sajen’s apartment. But Alex would have none of it. She wanted her dad. She’d been promised her dad. Elena remembered all the nights she’d waited up for her own father, who, to be fair, had been torturing vampires rather than doing something as simple and honest as pouring people drinks. Still, she understood the girl’s plight.

      Alex became quieter and quieter as the evening wore on.

      So, Elena convinced Damon to let Sajen off early. As she watched father and daughter walk out the door and into the winter night -- Sajen carrying the tiny backpack on his shoulder -- Elena felt empty. And then she felt all too full. She practically ran to the bar’s bathroom, throwing up all her popcorn and ice cream as soon as she reached the toilet.

 

      Now, Damon snuggled up against her and kissed her shoulder. He felt so warm and so … innocent somehow. “You saved my ass tonight,” he said.

      “It was fun,” she said, wondering how long she could delay a serious conversation.

      “Spunky kid,” he told her, stroking her hair.

      Elena felt her body tense.

      “You okay?” her husband asked.

      She sat up and turned on the light. She wanted to be able to see his face, to know if he was lying at any point during this conversation. “When we got married, we talked about kids. But I never knew if that’s what you really wanted. I mean, you’re Damon Salvatore. Vampire or not, you’re not the kind of guy who coaches Little League.”

      He laughed. “Yeah, I’m not going to coach Little League. Or peewee soccer. I think I’ll avoid coaching in general.”

      Elena gulped. “But kids? You, um, you want…”

      “Lena,” he said softly, kissing her face. “I already said yes.”

      “And you’re sure?”

      Damon sighed. “I’m not sure I'd make a decent father. But I could be better than my jackass of a father. And I meant what I said. I want you. Human you. I want us to be real people, and be a real family. Kids are part of that. And I know how much you want it.”

      “But you want children? You’re sure?”

      “I’m not saying it needs to happen today,” Damon said, running his hands over her tender breasts. “But yeah. Especially if they look like you.”

      Elena took a deep, shuddery breath as she turned towards him and pulled his hands from her breasts until they rested on her still-flat stomach. “It’s happening today,” she murmured.

      He frowned, clearly confused.

      Then his eyes widened. Damon Salvatore looked terrified. Still, he didn’t pull away. He rubbed her stomach cautiously.

      “Elena,” Damon said. “Can you be completely clear and obvious with me. Like, assume I’m a total moron.”

      She smiled and nodded and tried to tell him but nothing came out.

      “Are you, um, you know,” he stammered.

      She nodded. Again, she tried to speak, and again, she failed.

      “Like, maybe, possibly, pregnant?” he finally got the words out.

      Elena sucked in her breath quickly, trying to maintain her cool, terrified that he was not happy about this news. Terrified at that word being said out loud, period. She still wasn't sure how she felt about this word, this whole situation.

      “I took a test tonight, after I dropped Alex at the bar,” Elena finally whispered. “So, yeah. That’s what I’m saying.”

      He sat up. His face was unreadable. She lay very still. “How long have you known?” he wanted to know.

      “Today. Tonight really. I should have realized earlier. I’m a freaking med student. But I guess I wasn’t looking out for it.”

      Damon nodded. “You were sick this morning.” Now he was shaking his head, as if he was amused about something. “And yesterday morning. And the morning before that. And you haven’t been eating much for weeks. You looked awfully pale when you dropped off Sajen's daughter. But that wasn't in the morning."

      "It isn't always in the morning. Even if they call it morning sickness."

      "Elena," Damon said, "Why didn’t we catch this? Aren’t you on that pill thing?”

      Elena realized she was freezing. She pulled the blanket around her shoulders. Damon held onto her, wrapping his arms around her, kissing the back of her neck. “It’s okay, Lena. We can do this.”

      “How am going to finish med school?”

      “We’ll get a nanny or something.”

      “But then I’ll never see our kid!”

      “So you take a little time off.”

      “But then I’ll never finish school. I’m supposed to be a doctor.”

      Damon laughed. And then he put his hands on her belly, caressing it more confidently. “Can you feel it yet? The baby?”

      “Moving?”

      “Yeah.”

      Now she laughed. “It’s too small.”

      “Is that why you don’t look pregnant?”

      “Uh huh. Don’t you know anything about pregnancy?” she asked.

      He ran his fingers lightly from her still-flat stomach to her swollen breasts. “The last time pregnancy was relevant to me ... it wasn’t a matter discussed by men. Ever. It was a miracle or a curse, depending. But it was never discussed.”

      “No health class in 1864?”

      “This would be covered in health class?”

      Elena laughed a little harder this time. “Did you ever want to be a father, back then?”

      Damon was caressing her breasts now, both of them. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I mean, I figured I would, after the war. Before I knew what she was, I was all set on asking Katherine to marry me. That would have been a disaster. But having a family, and being the kind of father I didn’t have… Yeah. I thought about it.”

      “And now?”

      “Is this why your breasts have been bigger lately?” he asked, cupping his hand around her right breast, as if measuring it.

      She slapped his hands away. “Damon! Be serious.”

      “This is a valid question.”

      “Yes. And they’ll get bigger.”

      “That sounds fun.”

      “They actually hurt a lot.”

      “Is something wrong?”

      “No. It’s another thing you should have learned in health class.”

      “How long do you think you’ve been, um—”

      “Pregnant?”

      “Yeah.”

      “I think it happened that week we went home, to take care of Caroline.”

      His hands froze. “That was two and a half months ago.”

      She nodded. She turned towards him, biting her lip, trying to gauge his reaction. He looked terrified. “If you’re trying to do the math, I think the baby will come in August. And yes, I should have realized sooner. I completely missed two periods and I was just too busy to notice it as an issue. You see, when you’re on the pill you can miss a period.”

      “And you’ve been taking this pill?”

      “It’s not 100 percent.”

      “We need to get you to a doctor,” Damon said. “And a witch.”

      Elena laughed. “I don’t need a witch.”

      “You used to be a vampire, Elena. And you’re a doppelganger. There’s stuff about your biology that a doctor isn’t going to be able to understand.”

      She shook her head, but Damon was insistent. He wanted to call Bonnie right that minute. Elena convinced him it could wait until morning. And then he wanted to move to one of those nice houses on the edge of town, the sort of house that would have room for a nursery. And a yard. Children should be outside, he said.

      “We can get it a horse. I had horses when I was a kid. And I bet I still remember how to fish. Maybe we should move out to the country. More room to explore.  Do you want to ban all video games? I can read it Tom Sawyer, and you can read it those Harry Potter books. Do kids still read Tom Sawyer? Do you want to ban cell phones too?”

      Elena laughed and laughed. And then he kissed her belly and she could swear she felt a fluttering, even though it was far too early.

 


	5. Chapter 5

February 2018

It was a rare lazy Saturday morning, and Damon wished it could go on forever.

He’d been sprawled in bed, half-asleep, for what seemed like hours, just lying with his arms around Elena, imagining what it would be like when her belly was full to the brim with baby, or what it would be like to be woken up by a manic two year-old pouncing on his stomach. This new development, this impending baby, was terrifying and inconvenient, and shattered what little sense of normalcy he had. Of course having a baby was normal. For humans. It was just not the kind of normal Damon Salvatore had ever considered having, after he died for the first time. And back then, during his first human life-time — it was a different world. A world without ultrasounds or the opportunity to register for things like bottle warmers, jogging strollers, or baby monitors. Hell, there was no electricity to power most of the gadgets they’d found at Babies R’ Us, and people didn’t “jog.” They ran — from bears or vampires, or after a deer they were hunting. But they didn’t “jog” at six in the morning to blow off steam or keep in shape. They didn’t talk about “getting in shape.” No one needed a jogging stroller. Maybe if iPods had been invented earlier.

His was also a world where fathers were seldom involved in raising children and never involved in the pregnancy. Every time Elena mentioned a pregnancy symptom, he felt embarrassed, like he should excuse himself from the room. Except he was usually the only one in the room. She didn’t want to tell anyone yet. Something about jinxing it, and the threat of miscarriage early in any woman’s pregnancy. And worries about what two years of vampirism, the cure, and then several years of a sleeping beauty curse could do to a fetus. Elena wanted to be absolutely sure. She didn’t want any sad looks if she lost the baby. And she didn’t know what to tell her professors. Before she’d gotten pregnant, Damon had secretly wondered if one or both of them had been rendered sterile. They’d been abominations of nature — why would nature return them perfectly to their initial forms? So they’d gone thirty miles out of town to see a doctor, confirm the pregnancy and get prenatal care. Everything looked fine. Like she’d thought, Elena was 10 weeks along. The baby was healthy. No clue if it was a boy or girl, but apparently it was healthy. Elena had said they’d wait for the end of the first trimester three more weeks to share their news, three more weeks.

Damon had insisted they call Bonnie, but she was unreachable. She’d ended up at some monastery in Peru, after backpacking through South America. No phones. No internet. They sent emails, but heard nothing. Damon went so far as to call the police in a town two miles from the monastery, but since no lives were in danger, and Damon couldn’t compel anyone to do as he asked, no police officers were motivated to go find Bonnie. The idea that Bonnie’s life could be in danger, because of vague reasons Damon couldn’t explain, didn’t interest the Peruvian police. Short of flying to Peru, he was out of options. So Damon and Elena waited. It seemed more dangerous to contact another witch. The ultrasounds were normal. The gray-haired lady doctor was encouraging. Even Damon saw no evidence of magical foul play.

At 13 weeks, Elena decided, again, to tell no one. She liked that the baby was their secret, for now. So here they were, 16 weeks along, an island to themselves. Damon didn’t know what to think. He didn’t even know how to think these days. He just knew that he loved the woman in his bed.

Damon’s phone buzzed him out of this half-sleep, half-consciousness. The room was filled with mid-morning light. Elena’s side of the bed was empty, but she must be home because he heard water running in the bathroom. Damon reached for his phone and groaned, putting it back down without answering. Two text messages from Ric, one from Caroline, and one from Matt. He was avoiding all of them. He struggled to have a real conversation with anyone who knew him well, without spilling the beans about Elena’s pregnancy, or acting like he was hiding something and therefore making his friends suspicious. So he’d been pretending to be busy for the last few weeks.

“Lena!” he called out as he lay back down on his pillow. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she yelled back.

“I thought the morning sickness was over,” he yelled over the water.

“It is.” She stood at the bathroom door, looking lovely with her extra curves. She wore a red negligee, which clung to her swollen breasts and her slightly rounded belly. In the last couple weeks, that belly had begun to protrude, not enough to be stand out unless you were looking for it. Most people probably just thought she’d put on a little weight. But Damon was looking for her belly, and it made her more beautiful. Every time he saw Elena, his heartbeat quickened. She was damned sexy. Regardless of whether she could fit into those skinny jeans of hers. (And she couldn’t. She’d done a lot cursing about this, as she resorted to wearing long shirts over unbuttoned pants.)

“You’re up, finally,” Elena said. “I talked to Caroline while you were sleeping. She says she’s fine, but I don’t believe her. She’s paranoid that there’s a mysterious vampire in town, but she has no proof, and there’s no bodies, just this vague sense of foreboding. So I called Jeremy and insisted that he come home to help with the school. Since they’ve finally got students, I figured that he could teach hunting, or just wrangle the kids. Then I called Matt, to remind him to check in on Caroline from time to time. Matt says she’s perfectly fine. He had dinner with her, Ric, and the girls last night, and I should just calm down or come see her myself. He did point out that no one has heard from Bonnie in a while. So I called Jeremy back. He got a postcard from Bonnie last week. He thinks Bonnie just needs a break from all of us.”

Damon sighed, wondering if the flurry of text messages he’d gotten this morning were in response to Elena’s flurry of phone calls.  
His eyes were drawn again to his almost naked wife. Wife. That sounded strange. Mother sounded even stranger. “Is that new?” he asked, pointing at the negligee that barely covered her torso.

“You like?” she said shyly.

“I like,” he said, standing up so he could grab her and pull her gently onto the bed. She fell on top of him and they both laughed.

“It’s new,” she said, and now her voice held a hint of embarrassment. “Can you believe that this is a maternity item? Even my lingerie doesn’t fit quite right anymore. I think it’s my boobs.”

Damon grinned. “You keep being this sexy, and I’m going to want to make another baby.”

Elena laughed and reached for his face, saying, “There’s another health class you must have missed.”

“Lucky I married a doctor who can teach me everything.”

“Not a doctor yet,” she said, and now her mouth was smiling but her eyes were not.

Damon traced his finger from her throat to her breasts, and then around each nipple, carefully because her breasts were always sensitive these days. “Don’t you worry, Elena. You’ll be a doctor. You’ll be fine. I read this article in The New Yorker —“

“You read The New Yorker?” Elena said with a laugh, reaching her hand up to tousle his messy bed-hair.

“You have no idea how boring the bar is before six,” Damon said. “Anyway, there’s this thing called a stay-at-home dad. Have you heard about this?”  
Elena raised her eyebrows.

“Well, it was news to me.”

“Sometimes it feels like you didn’t live through the last century and a half.”

“Let’s just say there were things I wasn’t paying attention to. My point is — I’m not entirely sure what a play-date is, and I’m terrified of the idea that someone is not only making music for children, but insisting that parents and children gather together to listen it. But maybe there are non-music related outings. And if it kept you in med school —”

Her eyes got large with wonder, or shock. “Damon Salvatore wants to be a stay-at-home dad? I don’t know what to say.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “It’s not like I’m doing anything that awesome at the bar. The point is, you’re going to be a doctor. I could be this SAHD — that’s a thing people say — or not. But we’ll figure it out, because we’ve dealt with vampires, werewolves, Originals, Silas. All those annoying Travelers. Both of us have died and come back, multiple times, and we figured out how to be human again. So a baby? One human baby? We can handle that.”

She smiled, with her eyes this time. Elena leaned down and kissed him fiercely, deliberately. Holding onto his shoulders, digging her nails into his skin just a tiny bit. “I’m so glad you’re awake,” she whispered into his ear before running her tongue along his earlobe. Damon moaned. “I’m just so horny today.”

The last two or three weeks had been made up of a lot of horny days for Elena.

Damon moaned as Elena moved from his ear to his neck. The time she spent on his neck, tracing his arteries and veins with her tongue: it was like an inside ex-vampire joke, and it was also heavenly.

All of a sudden Damon was aware of Elena’s belly pushing into his abdomen. It seemed rounder than yesterday. Fuller. “I love pregnant-you,” he breathed.  
This belly was deliberate. It was a statement.

It was a miracle.

She writhed around on top of him, naked except for the thin sheaf of red silk. He tried to breathe deeply in and out, to keep his body from going crazy, but he was fighting a losing battle. He didn’t want to behave like a fifteen year-old schoolboy. Damon Salvatore was better at sex than that.

He closed his eyes, searching for composure.

But Elena took control, and soon he was inside her. Still cautious and slow. “You don’t have to be so careful, Damon,” she said between moans of pleasure. “I’ve never been so ready. Just fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me!”

Damon laughed. In his long life, he’d never had sex with a pregnant woman. It had just seemed wrong. Until now.

He rolled her over so that he was on top. As she arched her back, her belly met his abdomen. It felt like life itself was reaching up to touch him. He kissed her. He was sweating like crazy and a few beads of sweat dripped on her. She laughed in delight. He laughed too, as he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He kissed her again, a hard kiss, full of all the things he wanted to say.

The moment stretched and stretched. It felt like it might last forever.

But then it was over. He fell on her for a moment, shivering with aftershocks. Then he shot up. “Sorry,” Damon said as he rolled off his pregnant wife. “I forgot.”

She laughed, saying, “It’s fine. I’m not that fragile. The baby isn’t that fragile.”

He raised his brows but said nothing. After a while he reached for the sheet so he could wipe the sweat off his face and body. “You got me excited. I’m sweating like a pig.”

“I know. You hate perspiration.”

Damon turned his head to look at her, considering. She was sweaty as hell too, though he didn’t think anything could ever make Elena seem like a pig. “I know I’ve bitched and moaned a lot about not being a vampire.”

Elena raised her eyebrows as she said, “A lot.”

“Yeah. Well. That’s what you get when you marry a guy who was a vampire for a century and a half. But what I’m trying to say is that there is something nice about sweating. Or being cold.” He pulled her closer to him and she snuggled into his chest. “You know how you’re always cold as a vampire?” She nodded. “But it’s a different type of cold, right?”

“Yeah. I never thought about it, but it is. I never shivered.”

“Exactly. It’s this dull ache of cold. It’s not the kind of cold you feel when you’re human. Like last night, when you decided we had to walk home because I was drunk and it would sober me up?”

She laughed into his shoulder.

“153 years as a vampire did nothing to prepare me for walking home at two in the morning in February in Virginia,” Damon said. “Cause when you’re human, what’s so miserable about being cold is that you’re actually warm inside, so it’s kind of like ice fighting with fire. And when you’ve spent 153 years not feeling that — at first it seems awful. Eventually you can appreciate the cold.”

Elena laughed gently. She turned her head so she could kiss him. Coming up for air, she said, “So you’ve found something you like about being human?”

“Possibly,” he said with a wry smile.

“Because you wanted this,” Elena said, kind but firm. “Remember when you told me that? When you insisted? I know there’s something good for you in this life, beyond me or kids, something for you. Something that Human Damon can do spectacularly.”

He was leaning in to kiss her when the phone rang. It was Alaric. Damon ignored the call. Then the phone rang again. The bar this time. “Sajen,” he snapped. “This better be good.”

“There’s a guy here who says he knows you,” his manager said in a rush. “I told him we weren’t even open yet, but he barged in anyway. He’s kind of scary. He says that unless you’re dead he needs to talk to you right now.”

Damon sighed. “And who is this jackass?”

“He’s got a weird name,” Sajen said. “Alaric, um —”

“Saltzman,” Ric shouted. “And tell him to get his ass down here so I can make sure he’s not dead.”

Damon sighed again. “I’ll be right there. Get him a bourbon. Neat. Triple. The best we have.”

He could almost hear Sajen nodding. “He’s not going to kill me, is he?” the very human and very untested bar manager whispered.

“He’s a friend. Harmless. Unless you’re a vampire.”

When he hung up the phone, he glanced at Elena wistfully. “I’ve got to go deal with this,” he told her as he scrambled out of bed, searching for clean clothes.

“Why is Alaric so upset?” she wanted to know.

“Probably because I’ve been avoiding him for weeks, Elena,” Damon said softly. “It’s hard to talk to anyone without spilling the beans.” Damon wondered how worried Ric had to be to drive all the way from Mystic Falls without telling him, or Elena, that he was coming. As wonderful and magical as these last few weeks had been, it was hard to keep the pregnancy a secret from everyone else in their lives. And he did feel cut off from the rest of the world.

She sat in bed, resting one hand on her belly. “It’s hard not to tell them, isn’t it?” Elena asked, her voice small, sad. Damon nodded. He was tired of arguing with Elena about when to tell the world. Every time they talked about it, she got so scared.

But now she looked determined, like she was bracing herself for something. “Okay,” she said softly. “We’ll tell them.”

“Really?”

“We can’t wait forever," Elena said with a shy grin. "I mean, look at me.”


	6. Chapter 6

  _Still February 2018_

_Later that morning_

 

When Damon arrived at his dusty and dysfunctional place of business, he found his best friend at the bar, sitting there like he owned the place, topping off his own glass with a bottle of Damon’s best bourbon. He seemed to be deep in conversation with Sajen. Great. Who knows what seemingly innocuous details about Damon’s day to day life Ric was pulling from Damon’s bar manager, without Sajen realizing what was happening. ust before Damon reached them, Ric spun around, smiling, but clearly not happy. It was an angry smile. “Finally,” his friend said. “And I only had to drive all morning and terrorize your bar manager to get a face to face with you.”

“You’re such a drama queen,” Damon snapped. Now he was nervous about sharing the news. Why was he nervous? “I hope you’re planning on paying for that liquor.” To Sajen he said, “Couldn’t you have insisted he drink the cheap young stuff?”

Sajen shrugged and appeared to make himself busy by drying shot glasses. But he was clearly listening in.

“Seriously, man. I was worried,” Ric said, exhaustion creeping into his voice.

Damon rolled his eyes. “I’m fine. Why would there be anything to worry about?”

“Is Elena okay?”

“She’s um — ”

Ric’s eyes widened. “What? Some kind of side effect of the cure? I’ve been looking into this.”

Damon tilted his head towards Sajen, widening his eyes so he thought they might pop out of his skull, trying to remind Ric not to chitchat about supernatural things around non-supernatural people. “She’s fine,” he said.

Ric, looking relieved, reached for a clean glass behind the bar. “Good, because we have business to discuss,” he told Damon, grabbing the bottle and glasses. “Let’s get a table and I’ll fill you in.”

Sajen was staring. His mouth was actually open.

Damon glared at his manager, snapping, “Nothing to see here. Can’t you find something do in the back. Didn’t we get an order of chicken-something. I bet that needs attending to.”

Sajen grinned, “Chicken wings are thawing in the good refrigerator. I whipped up a marinade. My own recipe. You’ll like it.”

Damon rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. What about fixing the dishwasher?”

“Did that. And I cleaned the oven and tinkered with the bad fridge so that hopefully we can start putting less perishable stuff in there and test it out.”

Damon sighed. “Well, aren’t you the epitome of resourcefulness.”

Sajen shrugged. “Ric was telling me all about Mystic Falls.”

Now Damon’s eyes were really popping out of his head. “Oh, really?” he asked, turning towards his best friend. “And what tidbits did you choose to share?”

“Oh you know, gas leaks. Animal attacks. Our tumultuous town.” Seeing Damon’s intense glare, he added, “Sajen had heard about the gas leaks. He was curious. I was telling him that we’re really back to normal.”

Damon smiled menacingly at both of them. “Well, now that we’ve all bonded so swimmingly, I think it’s time for Ric to go explore the exciting “big city life” of the town of Charlottesville, while Sajen gets back to work saving the world, one bad refrigerator at a time.” Ric looked like he was about to argue, but Damon added, “I’ll be along in a minute, brother. I’ve just got to be all owner-y, and then I’ll yours. We’ll even sightsee.”

Ric sputtered, “Oh no, I— ”

“I bet you’d like to see Monticello, huh, Mr. History Teacher?” Damon smirked.

“Oh no you don’t,” Ric insisted. “We have business to discuss. We are going to get a table at the back of the restaurant and you are going to put on your adult face, and you are going to listen to what I have to say. Which I dare say will be interesting to you.

Damon couldn’t take it anymore. He felt stuck to the ground, unable to follow Alaric anywhere, unable to discuss whatever goddamned business needed to be discussed. He’d been working up to this confession since he’d left the apartment an hour ago. He’d gotten lost on purpose so that he had more time to think, and if he was honest with himself, more time to avoid the words. And if he was really honest with himself, he’d been working up to this confession for six weeks, ever since Elena had told him she was pregnant, and especially since they’d gone to the doctor and seen that damned sonogram.

It wasn’t just Elena who was stalling. And he wasn’t stalling because he was afraid she’d lose the baby. He knew the pregnancy was going fine.

But Damon Salvatore: a dad? Jesus Christ, was he supposed to be a role model? Or at the very least a responsible adult? An adult who didn’t eat beer and twinkies for lunch, or accidentally serve alcohol to fifteen year-old girls. Or fantasize about biting the neck of any beautiful, and some downright plain, women. Or fantasize snapping the necks of bros and hipsters alike. Damon Salvatore, who was not a good person and had never claimed to be. Damon Salvatore, who loved to be selfish and relished his hedonism. Who was rash and unpredictable and thoroughly unreliable.

Damon felt like his whole life was going to change when he spoke the truth out loud. But he had to tell someone. He had to say these words. Two little words had been running through his mind for six weeks.

“Elena’s pregnant,” Damon blurted out before he could stop himself. “There. You happy? Now you know what’s going on. Now you’re _in the loop_ ,” he added in a snippy tone.

Ric just stood there, holding the bottle and glasses awkwardly, and gave him a blank look. Utter confusion all over his friend’s face. Like he’d never heard of pregnancy before. And then he grinned. The grin got wider and wider. “Well, damn,” Alaric finally said. “I didn’t see that coming.”

Damon stood awkwardly, unsure of what to do with his hands.

“Seriously brother,” Ric said, his voice kind. “This is good news. Elena must be over the moon. Did you guys plan this?”

Damon shook his head. “Apparently that pill thing is not one hundred percent.”

Ric laughed. “Yeah. Well, welcome to the world of modern medicine. Nothing’s as good as it’s supposed to be.”

Damon nodded. “Let’s get that table, Ric. There’s a good one in the back.”

“You’re going to be great at this, brother,” Alaric was saying as he followed Damon to the table.

As they were walking away, Sajen called out. “Congratulations, Damon! Alex will love to have a baby to play with. She’s already in love with both of you, especially Elena.”

Damon whipped his head around to smile gratefully at the man behind the bar. He could picture little Alex walking around the bar with a baby — his baby — clutching onto her finger, toddling alongside the older girl. Something about that image — about his unborn child having a playmate — made Damon feel less alone. And less like a freak of nature.


	7. Chapter 7

_February 2018_

_Charlottesville, Virginia_

_Still the same morning_

 

Elena’s hands shook as she picked up her cell phone and dialed the familiar number. She sat at her kitchen table, 90% of which was covered in medical school textbooks, notebooks, and flashcards. She’d cleared off a small area in front of her for her plate of half-eaten scrambled eggs and un-touched kale. Kale was supposed to be good for the baby, and so Elena was trying to force herself to eat it for every meal. So far this morning she hadn’t managed to get one bite in her mouth, but at least it looked pretty on the plate.

Her hair, still wet from the shower, dripped on her shoulders. She was wearing her very first maternity outfit today, a purple v-neck blouse that hugged her boobs and belly, and a pair of jeans with an elastic waist that promised to stretch for the next five months. Even Damon didn’t know she’d bought these maternity clothes. Earlier this week she’d discovered that her jeans didn’t fit at all, not even if she wore them unbuttoned. She promptly raided Damon’s closet only to find that his pants didn’t fit her either. Damn him for staying in shape even though he ate Twinkies in the middle of the night (somehow believing she never noticed).

After much tugging and cursing, Elena had managed to get one pair of his jeans to work, albeit unbuttoned. These faded old jeans, with the one knee ripped out, were the ones Damon wore purposefully loose, for manual labor like burying corpses, and the occasional hike with her. She knew she had a week, two weeks tops, before even these jeans were too small. So she’d driven two towns over, to visit a mall where no one knew her. She bought pants with elastic waistbands, and blouses made of stretchy cotton-like material that allowed room for her belly to grow. Elena had stared at herself in the mirror, terrified at her image because she looked so _pregnant._ She’d assumed that maternity wear would aim to conceal her pregnancy, but it was the opposite. These clothes made her belly look huge: they accentuated her curves, her changing body, her expecting-ness. She’d bought the clothes but didn’t even have the nerve to show them to Damon. She knew that as soon as she put these clothes on she was admitting it, to herself and the world. She was about to become a mother, and these clothes sealed the deal.

For weeks, Elena had been afraid to tell anyone about the pregnancy lest she lose it. She refused to endure any looks of pity or concern. But these last few days, she’d realized that the baby was fine. The baby was growing. They were both healthy. All doctors appointments were textbook perfect. The terrifying thing wasn’t losing the baby. It was having it inside her. It was the prospect of giving birth to a new human being, of attempting to mother an innocent when she felt like all her innocence had long ago been stripped from her, layer by layer, piece by piece. What wisdom did Elena Gilbert have to share with a child? How could she pretend like the world was a safe place, or that this child’s life would not be meddled with by the supernatural? Elena liked to pretend that she was no longer supernatural, but the cure ran in her veins nonetheless. And she would always, always, be a Petrova doppelganger.

 

Damon had run out the door, to go calm down Alaric, while Elena was still lounging in bed, but once he was gone she knew that this was the day that everything would change. Once they told one person, they had to tell everyone. Secrets never lasted in Mystic Falls, or among Mystic Falls alumni.

And so Elena pulled out a big bag of maternity everything, which she’d stashed in their bedroom closet. She’d wondered who she should call first. She stalled by making breakfast, and by once again failing to eat her kale.

And now, she dialed the number. All she had to do was press “call.” After what seemed like an eternity, she pressed the button and listened as the phone began to ring, half-hoping it would go straight to voicemail.

“I’m already packing my bags, Elena!” her brother snapped at her.

“Jer,” Elena said, her voice shaky. “That’s not why I’m calling.” She rubbed her belly absently. God, it was getting big. Not huge, but noticeable.

On the other end of the line, Jeremy sucked in air sharply. “What’s wrong?” he asked, all concern. Ready for action.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Bullshit.”

She laughed, glancing down at the evidence of her pregnancy. Her laugh was shaky too. “It’s good news, actually.”

Elena could almost see her brother frowning. “Okay?”

“I’m um — well, we are — um, you know —“

“No, I don’t know,” Jeremy said, a mix of annoyance and worry in his voice.

Just spit it out, she told herself. But there was no going back from this. Of course, Damon had probably told Alaric by now. And this baby was coming in five months, regardless of what she said to anyone.

“Elena?” Jeremy said. Yes, definitely frowning. “Did Damon do something?”

And then she began to laugh, stupidly. All of a sudden she was babbling at him. “Yes. Damon did something. A good something. Damon did something magical, and you better be happy about it or I might just kill you. Though I don’t know how I’d manage it.”

“Okay?” Jeremy said with a humorless laugh.

“I’m pregnant, Jer,” she blurted out. “Damon knocked me up. That’s what he did.”

A long silence. Too long. And then, finally, he said, “Oh, I get it. A good something.”

Another long silence. She felt like she might cry. And then she was crying. “Is that all you have to say?” she blubbered at him, cradling her baby bump protectively.

“No. I mean. Congratulations!” Jeremy said, his voice light and kind. He sounded genuinely happy for her. “I’m sorry. You just caught me off-guard. I’m not used to normal people news. I’m used to werewolf emergencies or Klaus emergencies or Travelers taking over our town. But this is good. You’ve always wanted to be a mom. You’ll be a great mom. The baby will survive Damon.”

And their conversation went on like that until Jeremy had to go, so he could finish packing and hit the road. He promised to come see her before his final destination of Mystic Falls.

 

Elena was only slightly less nervous about her next call.

“Elena freaking Gilbert-basically-Salvatore!” Caroline snapped. “You sick-ed your brother on me! I do not need any extra help getting the school going. How many times do I have to tell you that I’m fine? I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine-fine-fine!”

“I’m pregnant,” Elena blurted out before she could stop herself. Her hand almost flew to her belly as she said the words.

Another long pause, and then Caroline squealed. “Ooh, goody. This is going to be so much fun. The girls are going to lose it. Does Damon know? Ooh, do you think Ric will kill him?”

Elena laughed. “Why would Ric kill Damon? They’re best friends. And we’re married. I’m not in high school anymore. I’m twenty-five.”

“He’s still your almost-dad. And Damon is still one-hundred-and-whatever years old. It’s kind of like he’s married to a fetus.”

Elena wanted to slap the phone but instead she laughed. Freely. It felt good to laugh. It felt good for this to be something to laugh about, not some solemn miracle. She could almost forget her terrible luck in all things.

“Seriously,” Caroline said. “Did you tell Damon yet?”

“Yes!” Elena said, laughing still.

“And?”

“And what?”

“And how did he take it?”

Elena smiled as she told her old friend, “Surprisingly well. He actually seems excited. He keeps having big ideas, strange random things, like getting a horse, or moving to the country so there’s lots of land to run around in, and a good climbing tree, and a brook. He actually has some good memories from being a kid, roaming around, being Huck Finn or something.”

Caroline giggled. “Good memories from the 1800s?”

“I didn’t say they were normal memories. Oh god, Caroline, this poor kid! When he grows up, or she, we’ll seem like such freaks, won’t we?”

She could almost see her friend shrugging through the line. “Damon, maybe. Well, Damon definitely. But you?”

“Um, let’s recap. I was a vampire for two years. I took the cure. Something that’s only been taken by a handful of vampires, most of whom are dead. So I’m almost weirder than a vampire. Except I don’t drink blood, so that’s a positive.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Caroline giggled. “You’re gonna be a mom! It’s the absolute best. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.”

Elena grinned but continued. “I’m not done, Care. And then I got to sleep in a coffin for five years. Oh, and let’s not forget that I’m a doppelganger, an exact replica of the vampire who turned Damon in 1864, and countless other human women. And the first ever one of me turned immortal and insane. Totally a normal soccer mom.”

Caroline giggled again. “First of all, normal is overrated and we both know that. Imagine how dull our lives would be if we’d just stayed normal. Second of all, you can make it sound less freaky when you talk to your kid. It’s all in the way you shape the narrative. Think journalism.”

“And let’s not forget that this baby was conceived by two people with totally unique and bizarre biology, since we both used to be vampires and took the cure. I didn’t tell you earlier because I was afraid I’d lose it. But I still don’t understand how I even got pregnant at all.”

She could almost see Caroline rolling her eyes. “The baby’s fine, Elena. No need to freak. But getting away from all that, how are you doing?”

“I’m fine. Morning sickness is gone. I’ve got my energy back. And I, uh, I had to buy maternity clothes, Care! Which was terrifying. I’m sorry I missed all that with you.”

“Elena,” Caroline said slowly, deliberately. “How far along are you?”

“16 weeks?” she replied cautiously, a little scared of her friend’s reaction. She stared at her round, growing belly, really taking it in for the first time in a while.

“16 weeks?! How could you not tell me? Or anybody! How long have you known?”

“A month a half.”

They kept chatting like for quite some time before Caroline said, “Not to burst the happy bubble, but I did want to run something by you. Remember when I said we had a new vampire in town? I was wrong. But there’s definitely something weird going on. I keep getting this vibe when I walk by the building where Matt and Vickie were ringing that bell.”

Elena frowned, trying to think what could possibly give Caroline a freaky feeling, thinking to herself that her friend must be imagining things.

Then she felt a flutter, in her belly.

Elena jumped. “Oh my god!” she whispered.

“What? What is it?” Caroline asked. “Are you okay?”

Elena nodded. When she realized her friend couldn’t see the gesture, she said, “I’m fine. I’m better than fine. Care, I just felt the baby! For the first time. It’s like it did a somersault inside me.”

She could hear Caroline clapping her hands. “Oh, that’s the best, isn’t it? Especially when they’re too little to kick you and have it hurt!”

“It’s. God, Caroline. It’s like the best magic in the world.” Elena was crying, happy tears.

Then she felt something else. A foreign emotion. A shadow. Worry. Elena tried to shake the feeling, but she couldn’t.

“Tell me more about what you noticed when you walked by that building,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. The baby flipped again. In approval of her question?

“I don’t know exactly,” Caroline said. “Spooky. Odd. Not flat-out terrified, but like I’m noticing something not right. Like I’m seeing a wall and one brick is missing.”

Elena shivered. She knew exactly how Caroline felt. The same feeling — anxiety laced with curiosity laced with a trembling uncertainty — was now racing through her. It was palpable. Distinct. It was real. Not because she heard her friend’s anxiety and felt worried for Caroline. No. This was coming from inside Elena. As if Elena herself had seen or experienced something real. She didn’t want to tell Caroline what she observed within herself. She didn’t want to admit to supernatural hijinks. And she didn’t want to consider that her baby was anything but 100% normal.

But Elena knew she had to say something. This could be important, especially for those left in Mystic Falls. Before she figured out what to say, Elena began to feel woozy.

“Elena?” Caroline was saying. When she got no response, her tone grew worried. “Lena! Elena! Elena Gilbert-basically-Salvatore!”

Elena could barely keep her eyes open. She was just so sleepy.

“Call Damon,” she murmured as she put her head down on table and fell asleep.

 


	8. Chapter 8

_Still the same morning in Charlottesville, February 2018_

 

Damon climbed out of Alaric’s car and gestured up at the apartment building. “Here it is, brother, in all its glory.”

Alaric took in the shabby brick building, the little balconies hanging over the parking lot, the graduate students from the English department who were, once again, hanging out on the front steps smoking clove cigarettes and talking about moving to Canada to escape the current political system. He appeared underwhelmed. “It’s … nice,” Ric said with a half-hearted grin.

Damon rolled his eyes. “You’re a terrible liar. Come on up. Elena will love to see you. And you’ll see why I finally had to tell you.”

Alaric laughed. “This is going to be weird. Very weird. It’s almost like being a grandfather.”

Damon made a face. “Ugh. Gross.” His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. Several text messages coming in quick succession. He pulled out his phone and groaned for real. Showing it to Alaric he said, “Elena must be spilling the beans. Little Gilbert is sending me threatening texts.” Mockingly he quoted Jeremy’s words, “ ‘You better be good to my sister. I have a duffel bag full of weapons in my car at all times.’ Remind me why I’m not allowed to kill him again?”

Alaric slapped him upside the head, a little harder than was friendly or reasonable.

Damon’s phone buzzed again. “Care Bear!” he said as he and Ric began climbing the four flights of stairs. “Have you been talking to a certain wife of mine?”

“Where are you? Are you close to home?” she said in a rush. Damon’s insides froze. He knew this tone.

“Walking up the stairs. What’s going on, Caroline?” he asked.

“I was just talking to Elena. And she — I don’t know. She stopped answering. Then she said to call you, and I think she passed out. She sounded sleepy, really, really sleepy.”

Damon was running up the stairs now with Ric trailing behind him.

“What’s going on?” Ric shouted.

But Damon didn’t have time to answer. He ran like his life depended on it, wishing once again for vamp speed. Someone was coming down the stairs, in the opposite direction, and he almost tackled the dude in his efforts to get upstairs. It was his neighbor, Johnny, who kept his hair hippie-long and always wore Hawaiian shirts.

“Salvatore!” Johnny yelled as he got out of the way just in time. “You okay or just being a jackass?”

“Just peachy,” Damon yelled. “Altogether peachy!”

“Sorry man,” Ric said as he ran past Johnny. “He really needs the bathroom.”

Damon almost laughed. Almost. But now he was at his door. It was locked. He fumbled with his keys and wished that he could just break down the door. His hands shook — partly from worry and partly from frustration at his inferior physical self, but he got the key in the lock.

And there was Elena, his Elena, sitting at the kitchen table, her head resting on a medical text, beside a plate of half-eaten eggs and kale. Again with the kale? And was she wearing maternity clothes? Damon had gotten so used to his wife wearing baggy shirts and unbuttoned jeans that it was strange to see her wearing the clingy purple top that accentuated her stomach, even when she was slumped over a table.

He squatted down next to her, drinking in her scent of lilacs and rosewater and something earthy that reminded him of long summer days in the woods. “Lena,” he whispered. “Please be okay.” He placed two fingers on her carotid artery, relieved that she felt warm to the touch. Her pulse was there. Strong. “She’s alive,” he told Ric, who crouched down on Elena’s other side.

“Do you think she fell back asleep?” his friend asked, eyes full of worry.

Damon shook his head, rejecting that idea outright. “Oh, no, no, no! We are not dealing with that goddamned sleeping beauty curse again.” He rubbed her arm gently. No response. He rubbed harder. Nothing.

Then Ric pinched Elena. She gasped and sat up with a start. Damon pulled her up from the table so that she was standing, facing him. Then he pulled her towards him and buried his head in her hair.

Elena lifted her face to look at him, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry for scaring you,” she said.

Damon shook his head and kissed her, hard, not caring that Ric was there.

“What happened?” Elena said after a while.

“You tell us,” Ric said. “According to Caroline, you passed out while you were on the phone with her. You look great, by the way.”

Elena smiled shyly. “So Damon told you?”

Ric nodded. Raising his brows he said, “Not that he would have had to. Now that I’m seeing you.”

“Are you okay?” Damon asked. When she nodded he added, “And the baby?”

“I feel fine,” she said. “But something weird happened. I think the baby can sense things.”

 

###

 

Elena perched on the edge of the exam table, wearing nothing but a paper gown. She felt exposed, and embarrassed, and just silly. Damon and Ric hadn’t taken her seriously when she started talking about knowing what the baby was feeling, or the possibility that the baby was psychic, or a witch, or any other strange supernatural thing. Neither one of them had ever heard of a fetus displaying supernatural powers in utero.

Ric talked about low blood sugar and Damon talked about how he wished he’d read those pregnancy books she’d asked him to read, and they’d both said that they’d never heard of babies being psychic from the womb. Damon did leave a voicemail for Bonnie, and Ric said he would talk to the witches they had working at the school. But they’d insisted on taking Elena to the hospital. Nine times out of ten it was medical, Ric said. He flat out refused to let Elena drive twenty miles out of town to see her regular doctor, and Damon agreed. Ric couldn’t believe that they’d both been ridiculous enough to sneak around at doctors’ offices several towns over.

He was putting his foot down. What if there was a real emergency, he’d chided them. Luckily this was just a minor fainting spell, but all sorts of things could go wrong in a pregnancy and it didn’t make sense to drive twenty miles out of town, or to sneak around period when they were married adults. It was funny to listen to Ric berating Damon for acting like a teenager, when they all knew that Damon had been born 130-some years before Alaric.

Unfortunately for Elena, the best hospital in town was the hospital attached to her medical school: UVA’s Medical Center.

Now she was alone in this damned room. Alaric had been getting annoyingly antsy, so they’d sent him to the cafeteria to get coffee for him and Damon. Damon had been waiting with her, but then he’d had to step out to fill out some insurance forms (complaining about his lack of ability to compel people and therefore get out of filling out forms).

Elena was texting Caroline, trading complaints about how much pregnancy sucked. Caroline also thought Elena was imagining these psychic or whatever feelings she’d gotten from the baby, chalking it up to hormone overdrive. Her dismissal drove Elena crazy. But it was fun to be able to share her pregnancy with her best friend, finally. She was giggling at Caroline’s stories when the door finally opened. The doctor was young-ish — maybe in her mid thirties, with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a vaguely familiar face. Did she teach at the medical school? So far Elena had managed to avoid seeing anyone she knew during this trip to UVA’s Medical Center. Clearly her luck was beginning to fade.

The doctor wasn’t looking straight at her, but rather at the file in her hands. “Okay, I see that you’re 16 weeks pregnant, Miss, um … Gilbert. Wait, Elena Gilbert?” And now the doctor did look her straight in the face. She stared, open-mouthed.

Elena still didn’t recognize her. The doctor was distinctly familiar, but she couldn’t place her face. She definitely wasn’t one of her professors this semester or last, but if she worked at the med school, this reaction couldn’t be good.

This was when it got weird. The doctor’s eyes grew teary as she said, “How? How is this?”

Yes, weird and confusing.

Damon came swinging through the door, his arms full of snacks. “Okay,” he said. “I’ve got Jello. I’ve got little packets of pretzels. I’ve got ice chips.”

Elena laughed. “I’m not in labor. I don’t need ice chips.”

“Huh. Is that a labor-specific food? Well, I’ve got a couple fruit cups and I even scored some ice cream for you. And these weird little flat cups of juice.” He dumped the armfuls of food and juice on the table next to the exam table. “Seriously, why do they only have juice in this shape at hospitals? Also, the best news is that I got this cute little nurse to fill out the forms for me. Every single one. And she was the one who gave me all this food. It turns out you don’t need compulsion if you can do the eye thing that I do.”

The doctor gaped at him. “Damon?” she asked.

He grinned and held out his hand. “I guess my reputation proceeds me. Damon Salvatore.”

The doctor shook his hand, holding on longer than seemed reasonable. “You’re so warm,” she said.

Elena’s eyes widened. “Is he sick? Oh, god, Damon! Maybe you’ve given me something. Or gotten the baby sick. Have you been sticking to the immunization schedule?”

Damon looked confused. “I feel fine.” He stuck out his tongue at the doctor and said, “Aaah. See. Everything’s fine.”

The doctor looked back and forth between the two of them before asking in a bewildered sort of way, “You’re both human?”

Elena froze. Did this doctor know something? Did she know who they were? Elena tried to think of something to say. She stayed frozen.

Damon locked eyes with Elena, giving her a small smile, an “it’s going to be all right” nod. Then he broke out laughing.

The doctor continued to stare at each of them in turn.

Damon kept laughing. Elena joined in. “Good one,” she said, trying to sound carefree.

“My mother used to say I was born in a barn,” Damon said, “but I think that was mostly concern over table manners and closing doors.”

Now the doctor laughed a little and said, “You guys are good. But seriously, neither one of you recognizes me?”

Elena frowned, trying to figure out again who the hell this woman was and whether she should be afraid.

At that moment Alaric came in the door. He was handing Damon a cup of coffee when he noticed the doctor. The doctor looked downright frightened now, her face white as a sheet. “Meredith?” Alaric said.

The coffee fell to the floor.

 

###

 

Damon felt like an idiot for not realizing it sooner. “Meredith Fell,” he said softly. “My favorite psycho doctor.” Alaric’s old flame.

“What the hell is going on here?” Meredith snapped, her voice shaky but authoritative at the same time. She walked towards the door, and Damon thought she might flee the room. Instead she closed the door, locked it, and turned back to face the three of them. “You,” she said quietly to Alaric, “you are supposed to be dead. We buried you. I mourned you. It took me years to get my head on straight after that went down.”

Alaric just stood there, looking not at Meredith but at the coffee swirling around his feet. He looked like he needed a drink, or fifty, before he could have this conversation properly.

“And you,” she said to Elena. “You are supposed to be a vampire. His blood turned you. I know because I stole it and gave it to you. And I watched you come into the hospital that night, DOA after a truck got run off a bridge. I remember how you struggled after turning. But you’re pregnant. At least your file says you’re pregnant. Vampires don’t procreate.”

Elena smiled shyly at her.

Meredith looked at her clinically. For the first time she approached the exam table. “Lean back please.” Elena lay down, her expression now terrified. Meredith placed a hand on Elena’s abdomen, feeling the round belly. “Well, you definitely didn’t have a figure like this the last time I saw you. What other symptoms have you had?”

Damon laughed. “She’s pregnant, Meredith. There’s no trick going on. You think we have nothing better to do than play pranks on you and hang out in the ER?”

“But how is this possible?” Meredith wanted to know.

“She’s human. We both are,” Damon said. He felt a weight lifting off his shoulders. As much as Meredith had driven him crazy back in the day, he was relieved to see her. If anything supernatural or just plain weird did happen during this pregnancy, they’d be able to discuss it with Meredith Fell. And they wouldn’t have to make up lies to explain other weird shit, like the fact that Damon had never been immunized except for a smallpox vaccine he’d received while serving in the Confederate Army.

“How?” Meredith asked, voice small.

Damon smirked at her, enjoying this moment, enjoying her confusion and the ridiculousness of the whole scene. “You move to Alaska and you miss out on the new developments. Though I do apologize for my buddy’s inability to pick up a telephone. Ric, are you telling me that you never thought to call poor Meredith here and say, hey, I’m not dead after all, so don’t be sad?”

Ric shook his head, looking shell-shocked and also furious at Damon’s insolence.

Meredith clutched her clipboard to her chest. “Could somebody just explain what the hell is going on?” she asked, voice tight, almost pinched.

Elena sat up and grabbed the clipboard out of Meredith’s hands. She pulled the other woman toward her in an awkward hug, made more awkward by the fact that she was still wearing nothing but the paper gown. “It is so, so good to see you, Meredith. You want to know what’s going on?” Meredith nodded. “After you left for Alaska, we found out there was a cure for vampirism. It’s a really long story, but there were just a couple doses. A few years ago, I took the cure. Last year, Damon did too. And as for Alaric — he was able to come back to life when the Other Side, you know the supernatural afterlife, was falling apart. That’s a really complicated story, but essentially Bonnie opened up a door and Alaric walked back into our world. He’s human too, now. And not insane.”

Meredith looked at each of them in turn, as if trying to decide what to do and what to believe. Finally she let out a long, shaky breath, and threw her arms around Ric. He hugged her tightly. He looked like he was shaking a bit. Every other woman Ric had ever loved was dead. Damon wondered how this blast from the past was hitting his friend.

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

**_March_ ** **_2018_ **

**_Charlottesville, VA_ **

 

“And why are you here again?” Damon asked the nosy doctor standing in front of him and his box of expensive bourbon and scotch. He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Don’t get me wrong, Meredith. You’re kind of sexy in an ‘I’m-a-psycho-and-notorious-busybody sort of way’. But I, madam, am spoken for.”

Meredith Fell rolled her eyes. “I’m worried about Alaric.”

“Get out of the way and pass me that box over there?” Damon pointed at a still unopened cardboard box. As Meredith pushed it towards him, he asked, “And what specific worry is it this time? Do you think he has an evil, vampire-hating dark side controlled by a 1000-year-old-super-witch?”

In the box he found a linen tablecloth, thankfully not yellowed, or too terribly wrinkled. Maybe he could iron it later. But he only had a couple hours to get everything ready. Ironing could wait. Damon shook the tablecloth out and laid it on the cheap end table next to their apartment’s front door. Anything cheap in their place had been bought by Elena at Ikea or Goodwill.

“No! Nothing like that!” Meredith frowned at Damon, who was pulling out carefully wrapped crystal decanters, unwrapping them, and placing them on this piece of crap table. “What exactly are you doing?” Meredith asked.

“Setting up a drink table for the party Elena guilt-tripped me into throwing for her and her little classmates. Apparently if I’m going to inconveniently knock her up during her first year of med school, the least I can do is provide a ‘we passed our midterms and are not total morons’ party.”

“Elena doing okay since her appointment last week?” Meredith asked.

Damon smiled, thinking of how happy she’d been lately, how happy they’d both been. “Yeah. No more weird shit. Still pregnant.”

“And what is she going to drink tonight?”

“Virgin daiquiris.”

“And what are these ridiculously expensive decanters for?”

Damon grinned. “How else do you expect me to serve bourbon and scotch?”

Meredith laughed. “At a college party? You put a bunch of cheap liquor bottles on the kitchen counter next to a stack of red solo cups and a random assortment of mixers. And you should probably offer tequila, or at least rum. And vodka, definitely vodka. Only old men drink whiskey.”

Damon laughed. “Old men have good taste. Tequila is common, rum is girly, and vodka tastes like rubbing alcohol. And we aren’t mixing sour crap or whatever into anything,” he snapped. “Pass that dusting cloth?”

When she gave him the supple white cloth, he wiped dust from his favorite decanter, then began to carefully pour a bottle of Parker’s Heritage into it.

“How much did you pay for that bottle? If it’s more than forty dollars, you shouldn’t serve it at a college party.”

Damon rolled his eyes and continued to pour. “Not a college party. They’re medical students.”

“You know it’s the same thing,” Meredith said.

Damon sighed and glanced up at her. “I know I’m married to a woman who’s barely more than a child. Yes, Meredith, I get it. I’m human now. I’m not an idiot.” He topped off the whiskey and sealed it with a stopper.

“That’s not what I was saying,” Meredith said, almost kind this time.

He ran his hands through his black hair. “You’re all babies. College kids. Med school kids. Middle-aged people with the beginnings of a gut. Old people dying penniless and forgotten in nursing homes. And I’m the old man who has been around since long before red solo cups. Back in the day, this is how we threw college parties.”

Someone cleared his throat. Damon whipped around to see Sajen standing at the front door with a cooler. “What are you talking about Damon?”

Damon glared. “Knock much?”

“Sorry, it was open,” Sajen said softly. Half-smiling, half-grimacing.

Damon glared at Meredith, who’d clearly failed to shut the door behind her when she came in.

“It’s fine,” he said, ushering his bar manager in. “Sajen, meet Meredith Fell, psycho doctor extraordinaire from Mystic Falls. Also Alaric’s ex. Who gets extra points for still being above ground. Meredith, meet my annoyingly competent bar manager.”

Sajen rolled his eyes as he came inside the apartment. “Aren’t you just a few years older than Elena?”

Damon sighed, forcing himself to not laugh maniacally at this nice-enough guy who knew nothing. Nothing. _Nothing_. “It’s all relative,” Damon finally said with a smirk and a lot of condescension. “Sometimes five years feels like five years. Sometimes five years feels like, I don’t know, 153. Like, say, you feel like you remember what civilization was like before the automobile.”

Sajen looked confused.

Damon went back to pouring alcohol. “You brought the makings of delicious, classy party food?”

“So I’m going to do cocktail shrimp, bacon-wrapped scallops, mini-quiches, and those little mini-hamburgers,” Sajen said, looking far too proud of himself. Then his face fell. “Oh god. I didn’t even consider asking. You’re not serving vegetarians are you? Or vegans?”

Damon laughed. “I don’t believe in vegetarianism. The way I see it, if someone is going to make the absolute stupid choice to only eat plants, they can eat before they come. They should be lucky I’m not eating them.”

Sajen scrunched up his face in more confusion. He seemed to be waiting for an explanation. When none came, he took his cooler into the kitchen. Soon they heard sounds of clinking and unpacking. The gas lighting on the stove.

Meredith sighed and murmured, “College parties serve chips and dip.”

Damon sat with his back against the door and looked at Meredith, really looked at her. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t recognized the doctor when he’d first seen her in Elena’s hospital room a few weeks ago. She didn’t look that much different than she had six years ago. Same dark hair pulled back from her face. Same expression of curiosity mixed with judgment. A little older. Sadder. Definitely more lines around her eyes and mouth. He even saw a few gray hairs sprinkled within her black hair.

Still, he should have recognized her.

Maybe it was because he’d met so many people in his long life. Most hadn’t stuck around for the next act. They’d come and gone and once they were gone it was like they’d never been in his world. When you live for almost two centuries, you forget most of your life. Unless it walks back in, like into a hospital room in Charlottesville.

“So,” he said after a while. “What is your specific worry about Ric?”

“I don’t know,” Meredith said, face scrunched up in frustration. “He just won’t talk to me. It’s like something terrible happened when I was away and he won’t let me back in.”

Damon raised his brows. “Have you told him what happened with your little Alaskan husband yet?”

“What do you mean? We got divorced. End of story.”

“Well, you seem to think he’s keeping secrets. And of course he is because that’s the way we live. But you, madam crazypants doctor, you are clearly hiding something too. Because the last time we talked, you stopped by my house to tell me you had fallen in love with another doctor, from out of town, and just had to move to Alaska that very minute. And I told you I thought it was a little soon, because Ric had only been gone a few months and you’d just met the saintly doctor, and I was having a rare moment of interest in someone else’s life. I figured Ric would want me to look out for you. And moving to Alaska seemed … imprudent.”

Meredith smiled sadly. “You want to know what happened?”

“I know Ric wants to know what happened. And I like gossip.”

Sajen yelled from the kitchen, “I know I want to know what happened!”

Damon laughed, glad that he’d not explicitly stated that Ric had been dead when Meredith left for Alaska, but instead had pussyfooted around the word with the euphemism “gone.” He stood up and began looking for his whiskey glasses.

Now Sajen was standing at the door of the kitchen with a mixing bowl in hand. “Seriously. This is getting juicy.”

Meredith looked Sajen up and down. “I want to know why you’re wearing shorts in early March.”

“They’re comfortable,” Sajen and Damon said at the same time, Damon’s voice mocking.

“Enough stalling,” Damon snapped. “Let’s hear the story. Ooh, did you kill him? Are you the new black widow?”

Sajen grinned, but Damon was only half kidding. Who knows, the guy could have been a vampire, werewolf, evil witch, siren, or any other creature that goes bump in the night. And Meredith did have a screw loose.

She smacked Damon upside the head, surprising him. Damon reached out reflexively, grabbed her hand, and spun her towards him until he had her in a headlock. Realizing what he’d done, he dropped his arms and let her go. “Sorry,” he murmured, only a little sorry. “Old habits die hard.”

Sajen gaped at both of them.

“A little jumpy are we?” Meredith asked.

“I haven’t been sleeping well since Elena had her little scare,” he admitted. Damon had insisted to everyone but Ric that there was nothing supernatural going on with Elena’s pregnancy, but he had a bad feeling that something was up. They were supposedly normal human beings, but they had been vampires. They had the cure running through their blood. Who knows what that magic could do a fetus? As far as he was concerned, the pregnancy was a bizarre miracle and they should expect weird shit rather than be surprised it. His very existence in the 21st century was beyond weird. Even if he’d lived to 100, human Damon would have died in 1939. And people of his generation didn’t live that long. 1900 would have been an accomplishment.

“Anyway,” he said, deflecting, “What the hell happened in Alaska?”

“My husband was boring, okay?” Meredith practically shouted. “All he cared about was work and money and ice fishing. He was bad in bed. And he wanted me to have a bunch of children. I wasn’t going to have kids with someone I didn’t love.”

Damon grinned. “That is so goddamned mundane it makes my head hurt. Like, the idea that shit like that happens is just weird.”

Sajen laughed. “The idea that people grow apart, or are boring, or one person wants kids? You can’t believe that happens?”

Damon raised his brows and smirked at Sajen. “Let’s just said I’ve had a more … colorful life.” To Meredith he said, “And why exactly are you hiding this dull as a doornail divorce from Ric?”

“Because I don’t want to give him the wrong idea.”

“Like you were still in love with him? Like he was better in bed than the boring guy? Like you missed him?”

Meredith shrugged. “Whatever. Anyway Damon, you have to tell me what he’s hiding from me.”

Damon shook his head. “Talk to Alaric.”

Damon began opening boxes at random. When he saw a few of Stefan’s journals at the top of one box, he shut it and shoved it in a corner. Seeing his brother’s belongings made his whole body feel tight. It was hard to breathe when he thought of Stefan. Damon was not going to work through those emotions today. Another box contained a bunch of old records. These could be fun tonight. “If anybody sees a record player lying around here, let me know.”

Meredith looked pointedly at Sajen. “What do you know about Alaric? Have you met him?”

Sajen nodded. “A couple times.”

“And what do you know?”

Sajen glanced at Damon. Damon glared at the punk. Sajen shrugged and began talking, apparently deciding that he didn’t care if he pissed off Damon. At times like these, Damon missed his fangs something awful. “Alaric has two kids. And a kind of complicated relationship with their mother. And he runs a school or something. At Damon’s old house.”

Meredith’s eyes were wide. “Kids?” she whispered. “Alaric Saltzman has children? With whom?”

Damon sighed. Apparently Ric had told her nothing about his new life. This was going to be interesting. And here Damon was thinking she was just worried about day drinking.

When Damon didn’t reply, Meredith turned to Sajen again. “Do you know who their mother is?”

“Damon’s incredibly bossy sister-in-law. What’s her name?” Sajen said.

Damon really, really needed to work on his scary boss persona. Sajen didn’t seem to fear him at all. Maybe if he snapped a busboy’s neck in front of his staff. Just one busboy should make the point.

“Damon doesn’t have a sister-in-law,” Meredith told Sajen, incredulous. She stared at Damon as if trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

Damon wanted to murder Sajen, then chop him up and put him in the quiche. Meredith too. “Caroline married Stefan,” Damon mumbled, completely drained of snark.

Meredith frowned. “Alaric had children with Caroline? Ugh. She was his student, Damon! She was in high school the last time I met her.”

Sajen grinned. “Now this is getting juicy. Ooh, was she underage?”

Damon contemplated getting a big grill for barbecuing human flesh. Whose flesh would depend on his mood of the day. “Are we seriously going to worry about the age difference between Alaric and Caroline and not between me and Elena?”

Meredith raised her brows as she said, “Trust me Damon, I worry about anyone stupid enough to get involved with you.”

“They didn’t even sleep together,” he told Meredith, realizing how Caroline’s pregnancy wouldn’t make sense even if he didn’t have an impressionable, supernaturally-clueless person hanging onto this every word and could explain the magic involved. “Alaric was marrying this other woman. She, um. Caroline was like their surrogate.”

“Wait, isn’t Caroline a —“ she stopped when Damon cleared his throat glared hard at her, cocking his head at Sajen.

“It’s complicated,” was all he said.

“So Alaric is married?” Meredith asked, her voice small and sad.

Damon shook his head. “Jo died. During their wedding. It was a bad day. I wouldn’t ask him about it.”

She nodded. “Okay, well, I guess that explains why he didn’t want to talk to me about his life. … So, we’re looking for a record player?”

“Yup.”

“What kind?”

“No clue. I’ve had so many over the years. I can’t remember which one I brought. Could even be a Victrola,” Damon said with half a smirk.

Meredith nodded as she began to open boxes. “So where is Stefan in all this. You haven’t talked about him at all since we ran into each other.”

Damon groaned. He glanced at Sajen, who looked terrified, as if only now realizing what he’d done by divulging Ric’s personal business. Damon had only told Sajen about Stefan’s death because he wanted to make sure that if Caroline called the bar Sajen would get Damon immediately. He never discussed his brother with anyone else in Charlottesville. Neither his death nor his existence was public knowledge.

Today Damon was supposed to be preparing for a party. He was supposed to be doing something nice for Elena and bantering with Sajen, and then drinking his good whiskey.

He had no interest in telling Meredith what had happened that day in Mystic Falls. 

He was bent over another damned cardboard box, ignoring her, but he could feel her eyes boring into the back of his skull. He shut his eyes, trying to ignore everything but his search for the record player.

But his heart was pounding.

As a vampire, Damon’s heart had beat at the same rate as when he’d been a healthy, well-exercised young man. As long as he kept to a healthy diet of human blood, his body functioned more or less normally, and his heart pumped blood around his body like a human heart would. But it had never sped up or slowed down. Anxiety had not affected his pulse. Neither had worry, fear, or exercise.

But now, it was like his heart betrayed him every time he felt anything. Elena assured him that it was perfectly normal, and that he must not remember his first stint as a human well enough to remember this feeling. He didn’t like it.

“Damon?” Meredith said, sounding scared. “Is something wrong with Stefan?”

Damon felt like his heart might explode. Or just stop altogether. It was getting difficult to breathe.

“Sajen?” Meredith asked.

“Not touching this one,” Sajen said. It sounded like their voices were coming from far, far away.

Damon tried to breathe in deeply, as Elena had instructed him the last time this happened. He couldn’t get a full breath in. Disgusted with himself, he kicked the box away, grabbed his car keys, and half-walked, half-ran out of his apartment. As he concentrated on running down the stairs without passing out or falling down, he could hear his long-dead father’s voice in his head.

“Women have attacks of nerves, Damon. Men do not. I did not raise my sons to be weak.” All of a sudden this inability to breathe, which Elena had described as a totally normal, run of the mill panic attack, was familiar. He remembered this happening to him once, when his mother was dying. Stefan had been kept in the dark, but he was a smart kid and began asking all sorts of uncomfortable questions. Their father refused to acknowledge anyone’s feelings, and so Stefan turned to Damon for all questions, all tears. One day Stefan begged him to take him to the midwife in town, believing that this woman (rumored to be a witch) could help. Damon did not believe in magic then, and he didn’t know how to tell his brother that their mother’s death was inevitable.

He’d fled to the barn, thinking that a ride on his favorite horse would make him feel better. That feel of galloping. Of being faster than the world itself. But Damon had collapsed before he could get on the horse. His father found him, and at first had shown genuine concern. He threw Damon’s arm over his shoulder and was trying to help him back to the house. But when the symptoms disappeared — probably because their conversation, and Damon’s fear of his father, had distracted him from his panic — the asshat had dropped Damon. Hard on the ground. “You disgust me,” he spat. “It is a good thing your mother is dying. She will not have to feel my shame.” And he walked away.

Thinking about that evil man helped somehow, in 2018. He felt more in control as he concentrated on that evil man. He knew he was a better man than his father. He knew that Guisseppe Salvatore’s opinions held no consequence. He was long dead, long irrelevant.

Damon climbed into his powder blue Camaro and turned the key. He was about to shift into first when Meredith came racing towards him and jumped into the passenger seats.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have known.”

“Out!” Damon ordered.

“Damon, are you talking about this to anyone?” Meredith said, her brown eyes surprisingly kind.

He looked away before his own eyes could reveal anything. “People die, Meredith. It’s the way of the world. When you’ve been around for as long as I have, you stop worrying about a pile of dust and ash.”

“He was your brother,” she said, softly, intently.

“He was a pain in the ass.”

“That too. But it’s okay to be sad. It’s better to talk about these things than to keep them buried inside.”

Damon smirked at her. “You are so right. I should be in touch with my feelings.” He reached into empty air, as if grabbing something invisible. “Ooh, there it is. Sadness. And right next to it, happiness. I am sad. I miss my baby brother. Boo hoo. Saying it out loud has solved all my problems. Now I am happy. … So why don’t you get out of my car and go Dr. Phil somebody else.”

He opened up the passenger side door for her and shoved her out of the car. Then he sped away, not sure where he was going. He felt like driving. Damon Salvatore loved to drive. He remembered the first time he’d sat behind the wheel a car. It was the turn of the last century and cars were new, exciting, bizarre. They terrified most people with their noise and their speed and the distinct chance they’d flip over or catch on fire. Only the very rich could afford such a crazy luxury. And only the most intrepid would think of driving it. But Damon Salvatore was not afraid. He had been dead inside for a long time, missing Katherine, wondering how he would get through the next century until he could open the tomb. As he slid the goggles over his eyes and started that ancient car’s engine, the automobile had roared to life. The sound almost overwhelmed his vampire hearing. But he didn’t care. This was the sound of pure, unadulterated power. This nonliving thing made him feel more alive than a horse ever had. And Damon loved horses, even now.

Driving the Camaro was nothing like driving that ancient, proto-car. It was smooth as butter. The engine sounded crafted, not itching to explode. The car glided as it accelerated. But he could still feel that pure, unadulterated power radiating through his whole body. As a refugee from the nineteenth century, he still appreciated the magic of the automobile, the way it seemed like something out of a Jules Verne novel. Driving could feel like a miracle if he let it. And right now, he felt great, as he broke the speed limit by at least 20 miles per hour. (He had not yet gotten into the habit of checking speed limit signs, and had amassed a great deal of speeding tickets since he turned human. He was used to compelling or eat idiotic traffic cops).

Oh yes, this car could go much, much faster than the first one he’d ever driven. Hadn’t 20 miles per hour been impressive once?

As Damon sped through the streets of Charlottesville, heading out of town, he relaxed, soaking in the feeling of power and invincibility.

 

###

 

Elena walked into a half-full apartment. For a moment she thought the party had started without her. This was inconvenient. She was out of breath, after climbing four flights of stairs with a baby pressing into her diaphragm and crowding out her lung space. She was sweaty, and had really been looking forward to a hot shower and maybe some hot shower sex. She was touched that people had come early, but she wished they’d just leave.

Then Elena saw Caroline’s worried face, and her heart sank. She glanced from Caroline to Ric, Meredith, and Sajen. All serious faces. Her heart sank deeper.

“What’s the emergency?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light, like the idea of there being an emergency was silly. Please let it be a shortage of alcohol or chicken wings. Though chicken wings sounded good. She bit her lip.

Caroline sighed. “Damon disappeared a couple hours ago. We don’t know where he is.”

Elena bit her lip. “What happened?”

Everyone turned towards Meredith, who appeared to shrink.

After an uncomfortable pause, Sajen said, “Meredith was asking questions about Alaric and —“

“What?” Ric snapped. “Why?”

“Because you wouldn’t talk to me about anything! I didn’t even know that you had children!” the doctor snapped back.

Elena rolled her eyes, furious with Alaric for not being upfront with his ex. Like somehow avoiding any conversation about his life was going to help anything. She understood that it was difficult to discuss Jo’s death, but seriously? “We are going to talk about this later, Ric. But what do you and Meredith have to do with Damon?” Elena wanted to know.

Ric shrugged.

Sajen said, “I mentioned that Caroline was Damon’s sister-in-law. Meredith didn’t know that Caroline had married Stefan.”

Elena nodded. “Or that Stefan was dead?” she asked.

“I’m so sorry, Elena,” Meredith said. “I tried to talk to him. I tried to get him out of that car. But he practically threw me out. And then he drove off. Fast.”

“Was he drinking?” she asked the doctor.

“I don’t think so,” Meredith said.

Sajen shook his head. “Damon never drinks before 5.”

Ric snorted.

“Oh my god, that is so not true,” Caroline blabbered. “Damon Salvatore is the most notorious day drinker I know.”

“I work with the guy every day and night,” Sajen said, sounding defensive. “He doesn’t drink before 5. He’s not a heavy drinker, period.”

Elena held up her hand before Caroline could continue this argument. “Care, people change. People’s tolerance to alcohol changes, you get me? Maybe a metabolism thing.”

Sajen piped up. “I used to be able to drink twice as much when I was in college. But then I got married and had a kid and I stopped drinking all the time. Now three beers and I’m wasted.”

Elena smiled at Sajen.

The door opened, but instead of Damon, Elena’s brother Jeremy walked in the door. “I came as soon as I finished showing the kids how to shoot —” He stopped mid-sentence when he saw Sajen’s wide eyes.

“You’re teaching kids how to use guns?” the bar manager said, looking disgusted.

“Oh, no,” Caroline said. “We are wouldn’t do that!”

“Crossbows are different,” Ric said.

“Also something we’re not teaching,” Caroline said, glaring at Ric now.

“Photography,” Jeremy said. “I’m teaching them photography.”

Sajen let out a breath of relief.

“Much better than crossbows,” Ric said. “Which we would never use at school.”

“Never,” said Caroline.

Elena sighed. This is why Damon had wanted to invite either only old friends who knew about the supernatural, or only clueless people from C’ville. She’d told him their friends were smarter than he was giving them credit. Damon had infiltrated the Founder’s Council, after all, fooling Liz Forbes for almost a year. In response to this party argument, Damon had said he was smarter than everyone else.

“Crossbows are different from guns,” Ric was saying.

Maybe Damon was right.

She tried to think where her husband might be. And as she pictured his face, she felt something inside her. The baby? “Ouch!” she cried out, putting a hand on her belly as she felt the baby kick for the first time.

Caroline was at her side so fast she almost blurred with vamp speed. “Come on, honey,” her best friend said gently. “Let’s get you sitting down. Now what kind of pain was that?”

Elena let her guide her to the couch and sat down heavily, needing to sit less because of pregnancy and more because of her worry for her possibly unstable, possibly drunk out of his mind husband. Though as soon as she was sitting, she realized that the baby was beginning to weigh her down. She was a little more than halfway through the pregnancy, she’d gained 12 pounds, and she was tired all the time. “I’m fine,” she said to Caroline, who sat on one side of her, and Meredith, who sat on the other. “I think that was a kick. I’ve felt her move before. But that was a real kick!”

Elena couldn’t help grinning as she pulled Caroline’s hand to rest on her round belly. “Come on, sweetheart. Kick again for your Auntie Caroline!”

At first, nothing happened. But then all of a sudden, Elena felt a quick thud from inside her. Crazy little alien resident of her abdomen.

Caroline squealed. She hugged Elena tightly. “Wow, you’ve popped since the last time I saw you!” the blond vampire said as Elena’s belly stuck out between them.

Everyone laughed.

“Wait!” Jeremy said. “She? As in you know the gender?”

“We found out last week,” Elena told him. He’d been so busy at the school, they hadn’t been able to talk all week.

Caroline squealed again. “I knew I was saving those baby clothes for a reason. And seriously, girls are just way more fun than boys. Dresses. Nail polish. Shopping. Crafts. So much better than trucks and skinned knees.”

Before Elena could point out how sexist this attitude was — or tell Caroline that she intended to give her daughter trucks and baby dolls, or insist that all children should have skinned knees — the front door opened.

Damon walked inside.

Elena’s smile faded as she scanned his face, trying to decide how worried she should be. He looked tired but okay.

Patting Caroline’s leg, she tried to pushed herself up off the couch. She failed. Oh god — this hadn’t happened before and it was so embarrassing. She didn’t want to call attention to herself, so she turned a little sideways, getting into a better position for hoisting herself up. If she couldn’t stand up now, what would she do at 40 weeks?

Damon laughed, seeming to realize the problem. He walked up to her and grabbed her hands, pulling her into a hug. His arms were firm but gentle. She smelled no alcohol on his breath.

Elena leaned into him, relaxing because he seemed steady, in control. And her belly up against his — it felt like home. 

“Where were you?” she whispered.

“Driving.”

“Why didn’t you return anyone’s calls?” she said as gently as she could.

He pulled away from the hug, keeping one arm slung casually around her shoulders as he turned to face the group. “Everybody can calm the fuck down,” Damon said. “I’m fine.”

Elena sighed, knowing she wasn’t going to get anything more out of him in front of an audience. And maybe not at all. Damon hated to share his feelings, and he tended to take care of others instead of letting anyone take care of him. Had she been looking out for him? Clearly not enough. She’d never thought that a passing question about Stefan would prompt this kind of behavior. She hadn’t realized he was still hurting this much.

 

###

 

That night Elena stood in her living room, sipping a virgin daiquiri, wearing a new dress that almost matched Damon’s ice-blue eyes. Her belly stretching the cottony fabric.

She was admiring their work. Their apartment was full of people. People from their old life. People from their new life. All here together. Damon had been afraid this get-together wouldn’t work, that they couldn’t introduce their non-supernaturally inducted friends to their friends from their old life. That vampire havoc would be wreaked, somehow.

But nothing strange had happened. People were talking genially. Drinking beer and bourbon and virgin daiquiris, eating the incredible appetizers Sajen had made, and rummaging through Damon and Stefan’s record collection. Somehow Damon had pulled himself together and was acting like nothing had happened earlier. She’d tried to talk to him but he’d insisted that all was well.

“Is this a first edition of Abbey Road?” she heard Sajen asking Damon.

Damon nodded, a sad smile on his face as he said, “Yeah. My brother was a fan.”

Elena wished once again that Stefan would be here to meet the baby. That he could be here to be part of his brother’s new life. Of her new life.

Sajen, now deep in another box, looked up in surprise. “Wait. Are they all first editions?”

Damon laughed. “It’s sort of a pass it down in the family type of thing.”

“This one looks really old,” the bar manager said as he handed an ancient to Damon. It was smaller than normal size, without a cardboard jacket, its paper cover brittle and falling apart.

Damon handled the record carefully, squinting to make out the faded label. If he and Elena were alone, he would have complained that his human eyesight was pathetic, that he missed his vampiric senses, and was terrified to go to an eye doctor in case he was told he needed glasses. Elena had assured him that his vision seemed perfect.

Instead of whining, Damon grinned. Wide. “Stravinsky. Oh, man! This was a big deal back in the day. Stravinsky’s freaking Rite of Spring. But not exactly 21st century party music.”

Caroline came to stand next to Elena. “How are you? Are you good? Is the baby good?” her old friend asked.

Elena rolled her eyes. She’d already told Caroline that both mother and baby girl were good. Fine. Terrific. Five times. No strange incidents in six weeks, since that one emergency room visit.

“It’s just so funny to watch Damon now,” Elena said, stealing a mini-quiche from Caroline’s plate. “For a long time, he just seemed lost. And it was to be expected. But now he almost fits here, you know? It’s like I’m seeing the Damon I knew, and I’m seeing this other person, at the same time.”

Caroline looked like she was about to reply when Matt came hurrying over to them. Elena noticed a med school classmate — a pretty girl with dirty blond hair and intense blue eyes, glaring at Matt’s back. Was she also glaring at Caroline?

Matt’s eyes were wide. He laughed as he said, “Look, Care, I’m sorry, but I told that chick over there that you and I have an on-again off-again thing.”

Caroline glared at Matt. “Why are you involving me in drama?”

“What’s wrong with Marcie?” Elena asked him, trying not to look at the girl.

“Chick’s a little nuts. I felt like I was on a job interview,” he said. “If I’d stayed there any longer, she would have asked for my social security number. Anyway, Elena, shouldn’t you be sitting down?”

“Why?” Elena snapped at him.

Matt looked confused. “You’ve having a kid. That’s what people do, right?”

Elena shook her head. “Maybe if I were nine months pregnant. But I’m just a little over five. Do you expect me to sit down for the next 18 weeks?”

Matt shrugged.

Elena stole a cocktail shrimp, a min-quiche, and two mini-burgers from his plate. Her feet were actually killing her, they seemed a tiny bit swollen, she was starving, and she was still traumatized by having discovered her first stretch mark that morning, but she wasn’t going to complain to him now.

“You just look, like, actually pregnant now,” Matt bumbled his way through a conversation that was clearly uncomfortable for him. “Last time I wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t told me, but now. … I thought — ”

Caroline laughed. “Donovan, you are digging your own grave.”

Elena held up a hand, silencing both of them. “How is the Mystic Falls policing going, anyway, Matt?” she asked, to get them talking about something besides her belly.

“It’s fine, actually.” Matt grinned. “A lot of car crashes downtown, kind of weird, but no gaping neck wounds, so I’d say that’s a win.”

“Why weird?” Elena asked.

Matt shrugged again, saying, “It’s all on the same stretch of road. A couple drivers have said it was like the wheel yanked out of their control.”

Caroline raised her eyebrows, asking, “Could it be a witch?”

“Doing what?” Matt said with a laugh. “Causing people to crash their cars on Main Street? Why would a witch do that?”

Elena felt the baby do a flip inside her. She could picture the stretch of road, even though Matt hadn’t said exactly where it was. She saw a car spin out of control near the building he’d rung the hellfire bell. Elena had this intense feeling of something missing. No — someone missing.

Elena tried to breathe.

Everything was okay. She was not going to pass out in the middle of her party.

She was most definitely not going to pass out in the middle of her party.

Grabbing onto Caroline’s hand, Elena managed to slump into Damon’s old armchair.

The room swam in front of her. Blackness invaded her sight. But it wasn’t too bad. Elena Gilbert had had her life drained out of her by an Original vampire when she was 17. She’d faced down Silas. She’d lost Damon and gotten him back from an alternate dimension. She could handle a little pregnancy-related dizziness.

Caroline knelt in front of her, saying something. Elena couldn’t focus on her words. The baby kicked, much harder than she’d kicked earlier. Elena gasped as she placed a hand on her belly.

Wasn’t it too early for such a strong kick?

Then her vision flashed. For just a moment, she didn’t see Caroline in front of her. She saw Bonnie. Bonnie talking to her, telling her that there was a problem in Mystic Falls.

The baby kicked again.

Bonnie disappeared.

Elena was struggling to stay conscious. Now Damon crouched in front of her, saying something. She wished she could understand what he was saying, but it was like an ocean of noise surrounded her, and his words were lost to her.

A lot of people huddled around them, but Damon yelled at the crowd to give her space. He stroked her cheek gently.

He reached for her stomach, cautiously, gently. As his hand touched her round belly, she felt a glow of contentment, or peace, or relief, or something mellow flow through her. She felt the baby again, but their little girl wasn’t kicking roughly this time. It was almost like the baby was reaching out her hand to touch her father’s hand.

Just like that, Elena could hear normally again.

“Elena?” Damon asked.

She tried to smile at him as she said, “I’m here. I’m fine. We’re fine. But we need to find Bonnie.”

 

 

###

 

Damon was trying to clear all the civilians out of the apartment. He’d almost accomplished his goal. Sajen and most of the med students were gone. There had been an uncomfortable situation when a classmate of Elena’s tried to get Matt’s phone number, but Caroline had compelled her not to like him anymore. Caroline and Jeremy were cleaning up in the kitchen. Ric was drinking too much and trying to avoid Meredith’s questions. Matt was filling a garbage bag with beer bottles.

“Are you sure you don’t need us to stay and help clean up?” their downstairs neighbor was saying to Damon.

“I am so sure that I don’t even need to discuss it anymore,” he said, guiding the pushy woman towards her exhausted-looking husband. “Please. Elena just needs to rest.”

“Liam!” Elena almost shouted as the couple finally left. “I’m fine. I was just a little dizzy.”

“And I think you should get checked out at the Med Center,” Elena’s old boyfriend from Whitmore College insisted.

Damon wanted to punch the guy every time he saw him.

“It’s a common symptom in the second trimester,” Elena insisted.

Damon lay a hand on the much younger man’s shoulder. “I think you need to leave,” he said, rougher than he’d intended, but he’d had it with this punk.

Liam shrugged off Damon’s hand, spitting out, “If you knew anything about medicine, you’d take her to the hospital.”

Damon glared at his insolence. “See that neurotic woman over there with the dark hair? That is a doctor. Elena’s doctor. And she says she’s fine. Hey Meredith! You finished medical school right? Took your tests, did your residency, the whole shebang?”

Meredith looked quizzical but nodded.

“If it’s between you and a first year medical student who’s cocky as hell for no good reason, you’d pick you, right?”

“Elena’s fine,” she said. “I’ll make sure she goes to the hospital if I have any doubt.”

Damon smiled humorlessly. “See, Liam. She’s fine. You’re wrong. So you can walk out the door.”

Liam didn’t move. He opened his mouth to speak.

Damon held up a finger. “No. You do not need to speak. Or think. You didn’t get the girl, and you feel bad about that. I get it. I’ve been there. I get that you are threatened by me. I was the mysterious ex who she said was dead, and you were the cocky new guy. And in the end, her feelings for me won out over whatever silly stuff went on with you.”

“Damon!” Elena snapped. A warning.

Damon shrugged.

Liam sputtered. “I didn’t get the girl? What does that mean? Elena and I were never a thing. I never made a play for her.”

Damon frowned. Oh shit. Had someone compelled Liam’s memories away. Yes, that sounded like something someone would have done. But no one had told him.

Liam went on, saying, “And why would she tell people you were dead? You’re clearly alive. An ass. But alive.”

Damon was trying to figure out what to do when Caroline came rushing up and pushed him away from Liam.

She looked straight at Liam and said, “You are going to forget this entire conversation. You were concerned about Elena. Dr. Fell told you not to worry. So you decided to go home and get some sleep.”

God, Damon missed compulsion.

Liam’s eyes were still dilated as he said, “You know, I think I’m going to go home and get some sleep.” He yawned. “Thanks so much for the reassurance, Dr. Fell.”

As he left, Damon slammed the door behind him. Turning to face the group, he said, “Okay, anybody have any ideas?”

“Is the baby a witch?” Caroline asked.

Elena shook her head. She stroked her belly, looking worried as hell. “Neither one of us has a magical bloodline.”

“But we do have magic blood,” Damon said, voicing his worries out loud for the first time. “We are the only two people on the face of the planet who have taken the Cure. We might seem like normal humans, but we aren’t. We have a spell inside us. Me more than you, possibly.”

Elena gasped.

Ric said, “I’ve never heard of this, but it sounds plausible. We should talk to Bonnie.”

“We have to talk to Bonnie,” Elena said. “I’m sure that’s what the baby is telling me.”

Jeremy cleared his throat. “How do we know the baby is telling you anything?”

Damon was wondering how he could get to that monastery in Peru. He hoped that Bonnie was really just isolating herself, and not in some sort of witch trouble. His phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number. He ignored it.

Elena’s phone rang, in the kitchen. Damon left the group so he could grab it off the kitchen table. Not recognizing the number, he answered anyway, just in case. “What?” he snapped.

“Damon!” Bonnie’s voice came across a crackly connection. He felt his chest relaxing. His whole body felt lighter. She was okay. And she was talking to him. “I just hitchhiked into town because I had the strangest feeling I needed to talk to you and Elena.”

“Bon-Bon,” he said quietly, “something’s going on and I’ve got the whole Scooby gang here. But I need you to tell me something before I put you on with everybody.”

“Okay,” she said, sounding confused but on board. “What’s wrong?”

“Did you get my messages about Elena’s pregnancy?”

“What?” Bonnie almost shrieked. “That’s great! It’s great, right!”

“It’s great,” he said, laughing. “But she’s having visions. Could our blood be magic, because of the cure? Could it make the baby a witch or something?”

“I don’t know,” Bonnie said.

“I need you to tell me if I need to worry about her losing the baby,” he whispered.

Bonnie let out a long sigh on the other end of the line. “I don’t know, Damon. Is she having pain or cramps?”

“No. Just a vision of you.”

“Well, it’s weird, but it doesn’t sound like a miscarriage.”

“Do witches ever have visions like these?”

“I’ve heard of pregnancy throwing off a witch’s magic, sure,” she said. “I think you need to stop worrying and let me talk to Elena.”

Damon walked the phone into the living room, hit the speakerphone option, and held it up in the air. “It’s Bon-Bon,” he said. “Say hello to all our annoying friends.”

“Elena!” Bonnie said, almost breathless in her excitement. “You’re having a baby?”

Elena grabbed the phone from Bonnie and they talked about the pregnancy for several minutes, how the ultrasounds had made it look like she had an alien inside her, baby names they’d discussed, the house on the outskirts of town Damon kept happening to drive by. But soon Elena’s face grew serious as she described the two visions.

“I think it has something to do with us destroying Hell,” Bonnie said.

“Please tell me that it’s really gone,” Matt said. “I can’t deal with more bullshit about that stupid bell.”

Damon’s face fell, imagining that his brother had died for nothing.

But Ric shook his head. “We’ve already looked into this. Bonnie, Dorian, and I have done a million tests. It’s gone.”

“It is,” Bonnie said. “But that was a big spell. It could have left an imprint. It could have done something we didn’t expect. Who knows. But we need to figure it out.”

“And someone needs to stop me from having these visions,” Elena said. “Seriously. I need to be able to go to class without worrying I’m going to pass out due to magic.”

As the girls began discussing baby names in earnest, Damon settled against the back of the couch, telling himself to breathe. He rested his cheek on Elena’s head. Her hair smelled like strawberries. New shampoo.

Bonnie was coming home, he told himself silently. Everything was going to be okay. Even as humans, he and Elena needed a witch. They thought they’d escaped their supernatural pasts, but they hadn’t. Not by a long shot. 

Elena squealed and grabbed his hand, pulling it to her belly.

His eyes widened as he _felt_ it. A sharp kick. He’d felt their baby girl flutter around Elena’s womb before, but nothing like this.

She kicked again.

She was strong.

Good, Damon thought. He had a feeling his daughter was going to need to be tough as nails. 


End file.
